Thirty-one teams going on 32 is a formidable challenge for Carl Hagelin to eventually play on all of them. But he’s still only 31 years old so we like his odds. In this age of information, a microchip embedded in Nate Thompson quickly locates him in Montreal, NHL stop No. 7 for him. And, after all those Sutters and Staals, what’s a couple of Tkachuks to track?

We started covering the game when 16 teams seemed ridiculously watered down to those accustomed to six, so it’s all relative, plus inevitable that players will wind up playing against their relatives. No complaints from here about it being too much to sort out, except for having to spell Eetu Luotstarinen. On any given day, there are 620 skaters and 62 goalies, sometimes including Elvis Merlikins, but no sweat keeping track.

Anderson or Andersen? Don’t have to inspect for birthmarks. One of them tends goal for Ottawa, so just count the puck marks on his throat. Fabbri? Fabbro? One just got traded, forget which, but at least they both still are in the same division. The Leafs have a prospect named Trevor Moore soon to join the same league in which has played Dominic Moore, Steve Moore and John Moore. The Moore the merrier, we say. We have an encyclopedic memory of every goal Anton Stralman ever has scored.

So it’s not the volume, that sometimes makes us want to turn down the volume on Center Ice and flip to the Ganders Outdoor Truck Series. If it’s all the same to you, we have a complaint about the sameness to the teams.

Say this about the cap era, even the franchises in the smaller markets have locked up their stars, so you know when Ottawa comes to town you are forking over your hard-earned bucks to see Jean Gabriel Pageau.

Sidney Crosby will die a Penguin and Joe Thornton looks like he is dying out there with the Sharks. Essentially the nuclei of Kings and Blackhawks teams that divided five Cups this decade is still intact, in those cases more for the worse than the better. But at least we know who plays for whom and that Val Filppula has to be playing somewhere.

The nightly roundup of lacrosse-type goals and shooters putting the puck between their own legs to score in overtime suggests the level of play never has been higher, and the cap has made sure the games never have been more consistently closer. All good.

Our complaint is that the teams are indistinguishable. And we’re just not talking about their four, fifth or sixth version of their third jerseys. For all the revenue they bring in at the souvenir shop, ultimately those don’t do much to reinforce the brands.

Almost every club has five-to-seven good players, a tall goalie who doesn’t get beat from the blueline, and pretty much the same style of play. They all are within three points of each other. Structure being the only way to win against teams performing the same basics, the players are told to make safe plays, so close games don’t always mean they are exciting, at least until the overtime.

Personalities are extinct. Interviews are a succession of players speaking in monotones about getting more pucks to the net. Never mind another Eddie Shack, we would settle for another Eddie Mio. Thuggery and muggery having been taken out of the game, is there another guy you love to hate in the league besides Brad Marchand?

The goalie from outer space, Ilya Bryzgalov, was so despised by teammate he was finished in the league by age 34. Of course, had he stopped the puck like Jacques Plante, Bryzgalov’s narcissism, too, would have been more tolerated. Nevertheless, the level of patience for different kinds of folks has shrunk like the size of the defensemen, The mean height of the D-men is not much more than six feet, their mean genes been shuttered by the post-lockout decree against the good ‘ol cross check in the back. Come back, Chris Pronger, please. All is forgiven.

Devils fans are hating the Rangers and Ranger fans vice versa just on general principle, there being nobody truly creepy to inspire enmity on either club. Currently, 24 teams are more penalized than the Philadelphia Flyers, a shadow of their once despicable selves, who now choose to sell a cuddly furry mascot more than they do Claude Giroux.

It’s been so long since the last of 23 Montreal Stanley Cups – 26 years – that there were a couple thousand empty seats when the Canadiens came to the Wells Fargo Center last week. These franchises have met in a final and three semifinals, one of which they were throwing down in various stages of undress at the end of a warmup, and now it was like the Coyotes were in town. Where have you gone Steve Shutt? We would settle for Knuckles Nilan.

For Montreal, it has been five years without a playoff series win, ten since reaching a conference final. Seemingly all that is left of the Canadiens’ identity is a logo.

Flying Frenchmen? Nice try by GM Marc Bergevin in trading Mikhail Sergachev for Jonathan Drouin – well actually so far it’s been a bad try –but at last count there were only 41 Francophone players in the league, so when your next chance to get a good one doesn’t come for another 32 picks, good luck trying to build a team with that model. The way things are going, the Kings have almost as good a chance of building a nucleus from Southern California.

For French-Canadians, the Canadiens have Drouin and Phillip Danault and that’s all, still more than most teams. But for what else were Nos Glorieux known? Speed. And, to their credit, they seem in a hurry to gather as much of that as possible.

Never mind that bigger was better on the back end for the champion Blues last year, or that the Caps, while not slow, were hardly known for the hurry in their game, or that the Penguins who added speed to win the last two Cups of the four in the Crosby era, no longer let that be their guide in filling in around Sid and Evgeni Malkin. It’s full speed ahead in Montreal with smallish, quick forwards, looking for the next Pocket Rocket.

With a top line consisting of 184-pound Brendan Gallagher, 183-pound Tomas Tatar and 20- pound Danault, the Canadiens are 10-5-3. Six of their 12 forwards stand under six feet and top pair defenseman Victor Mete is only 5-9. Last summer GM Marc Bergevin dealt 6-2 Mac Pacioretty for Tatar and 5-11 Nick Suzuki.

Pedal to the metal, this is the way the Canadiens want to play. Suddenly, again I can see Claude Ruel running transition drills; Guy Lafleur, Bob Gainey and Shutt flying like the bottles up against storefronts when Clarence Campbell suspended The Rocket during the playoffs.

“We have been doing this for a couple years, part of our adjustment,” said Coach Claude Julien. “We understand we are not the biggest team in the league, so to compensate for that we use speed.

“It doesn’t mean we aren’t gritty and don’t get our noses dirty. But we don’t want to get into board battles with big teams because it doesn’t serve us well. We’re built around quickness.

“I think we are well balanced over four lines, but it’s a young team and everyone has to understand there are some growing pains.”

Americans (Chris Chelios), Finns (Saku Koivu) and Swedes (Mats Naslund) were beyond just welcome in Montreal, totally beloved. But the 1993 Canadiens, their last to win it all, had 11 Francophones, while the 2010 club that reached the conference final not one in their top seven scorers.

Times change but not appetites. Although some kept meticulous count of the number of Anglophones on the power play, it always was more about the winning The Canadiens are back to selling out again and have a good chance to making the playoff spot that they missed a year ago by only two points with a 6-2-1 closing run.
Spoiled by success was for the last generation. This one is so removed from the dynasties that it just wants some playoff games again. Meanwhile, it is fun to see a Canadiens team trying to establish a clear personality again, for better or worse.

Worse showed up in Philly last week, where they were badly outplayed, but nevertheless stole a point through the efforts of Carey Price, who, alas then flubbed a Sean Couturier softie in the overtime. Back home, the Canadiens next pounced for three early goals and Price held off the Kings and then Price held them so they could back and beat the Jackets. To be so reliant on one of the game’s best goaltenders has gotten Montreal nothing but bare respectability for a decade. Now, if Bergevin can shore up that defense, maybe it’s back to the future.

With another trio of Serge Savard, Larry Robinson and Guy Lapointe probably never to be seen again in these parts -- or any parts for that matter–here’s to Montreal at least trying to have an MO true to the greatest heritage in the game. They are different. Always were.

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