1939–40 Montreal Canadiens season

The 1939–40 Montreal Canadiens season was the 31st season in franchise history. The team placed seventh in the regular season and did not qualify for the playoffs for the first time since the 1935–36 season. The Canadiens would not finish a season in last place in their division for another 59 years, and would not finish last in the league for another 82 years.

1939–40 Montreal Canadiens
League	7th NHL
1939–40 record	10–33–5
Goals for	90
Goals against	168
Team information
General manager	Jules Dugal
Coach	Pit Lepine
Captain	Walter Buswell
Arena	Montreal Forum
Team leaders
Goals	Toe Blake (17)
Assists	Charlie Sands (20)
Points	Toe Blake (36)
Penalty minutes	Polly Drouin (51)
Wins	Claude Bourque (9)
Goals against average	Claude Bourque (3.29)
← 1938–39 1940–41 →

Regular season

The Canadiens' first game saw them score what would be a season-high 8 goals as they defeated the Chicago Black Hawks 8–2 at the Montreal Forum on November 5, 1939. The Habs were undefeated over their first six games (4-0-2) and were 6-2-2 in their first ten. After that, however, long winless streaks were the rule. They went 3-8-0 in December, 1-10-1 in January, 1-8-1 in February and 1-5-1 in March. Their most lopsided loss happened on February 22, 1940 – 1–10 against the Chicago Black Hawks at Chicago.

Final standings

National Hockey League

	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PIM	Pts
Boston Bruins	48	31	12	5	170	98	330	67
New York Rangers	48	27	11	10	136	77	520	64
Toronto Maple Leafs	48	25	17	6	134	110	485	56
Chicago Black Hawks	48	23	19	6	112	120	351	52
Detroit Red Wings	48	16	26	6	90	126	250	38
New York Americans	48	15	29	4	106	140	236	34
Montreal Canadiens	48	10	33	5	90	167	338	25

^[1]

Note: GP = Games Played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, PIM = Penalty Minutes, Pts = Points
       Teams that qualified for the playoffs are highlighted in bold.

Record vs. opponents

1939–40 NHL Records ^[2]
Team	BOS	CHI	DET	MTL	NYA	NYR	TOR
Boston	—	6–1–1	5–3	6–1–1	7–1	2–4–2	5–2–1
Chicago	1–6–1	—	6–0–2	5–2–1	3–4–1	4–4	4–3–1
Detroit	3–5	0–6–2	—	5–3	5–3	2–3–2	1–6–1
Montreal	1–6–1	2–5–1	3–5	—	2–4–2	1–6–1	1–7
N.Y. Americans	1–7	4–3–1	3–5	4–2–2	—	1–6–1	2–6
N.Y. Rangers	4–2–2	4–4	3–2–2	6–1–1	6–1–1	—	4–1–3
Toronto	2–5–1	3–4–1	6–1–1	7–1	6–2	1–4–3	—

Schedule and results

Regular season results
No.	R	Date	Score	Opponent	Record
1	W	November 5, 1939	8–2	Chicago Black Hawks (1939–40)	1–0–0
2	W	November 9, 1939	2–0	New York Americans (1939–40)	2–0–0
3	T	November 16, 1939	3–3 OT	Boston Bruins (1939–40)	2–0–1
4	W	November 19, 1939	2–1 OT	@ New York Rangers (1939–40)	3–0–1
5	W	November 21, 1939	2–1	@ Boston Bruins (1939–40)	4–0–1
6	T	November 23, 1939	1–1 OT	New York Rangers (1939–40)	4–0–2
7	L	November 25, 1939	4–6	Detroit Red Wings (1939–40)	4–1–2
8	L	November 30, 1939	2–5	@ New York Americans (1939–40)	4–2–2
9	W	December 3, 1939	3–1	@ Detroit Red Wings (1939–40)	5–2–2
10	W	December 7, 1939	4–1	Toronto Maple Leafs (1939–40)	6–2–2
11	L	December 9, 1939	0–3	@ Toronto Maple Leafs (1939–40)	6–3–2
12	L	December 10, 1939	2–3	@ Chicago Black Hawks (1939–40)	6–4–2
13	W	December 14, 1939	5–3 OT	New York Americans (1939–40)	7–4–2
14	L	December 16, 1939	2–4	New York Rangers (1939–40)	7–5–2
15	L	December 19, 1939	2–5	@ New York Rangers (1939–40)	7–6–2
16	L	December 21, 1939	2–3	Boston Bruins (1939–40)	7–7–2
17	L	December 25, 1939	1–3	@ Detroit Red Wings (1939–40)	7–8–2
18	L	December 28, 1939	4–6	Toronto Maple Leafs (1939–40)	7–9–2
19	L	December 31, 1939	1–6	@ Boston Bruins (1939–40)	7–10–2
20	L	January 1, 1940	0–1	@ New York Americans (1939–40)	7–11–2
21	L	January 4, 1940	2–3	Detroit Red Wings (1939–40)	7–12–2
22	L	January 6, 1940	1–3	@ Toronto Maple Leafs (1939–40)	7–13–2
23	W	January 7, 1940	2–1	@ Chicago Black Hawks (1939–40)	8–13–2
24	L	January 9, 1940	0–2	Chicago Black Hawks (1939–40)	8–14–2
25	L	January 14, 1940	2–4	@ Boston Bruins (1939–40)	8–15–2
26	L	January 16, 1940	1–6	Boston Bruins (1939–40)	8–16–2
27	L	January 18, 1940	0–1	New York Rangers (1939–40)	8–17–2
28	T	January 25, 1940	2–2 OT	New York Americans (1939–40)	8–17–3
29	L	January 27, 1940	1–3	@ Toronto Maple Leafs (1939–40)	8–18–3
30	L	January 28, 1940	1–8	@ Chicago Black Hawks (1939–40)	8–19–3
31	L	January 30, 1940	1–4	@ New York Americans (1939–40)	8–20–3
32	L	February 4, 1940	0–9	@ New York Rangers (1939–40)	8–21–3
33	L	February 8, 1940	1–2	Detroit Red Wings (1939–40)	8–22–3
34	W	February 11, 1940	3–2 OT	@ Detroit Red Wings (1939–40)	9–22–3
35	T	February 15, 1940	1–1 OT	Chicago Black Hawks (1939–40)	9–22–4
36	L	February 17, 1940	1–3	@ Toronto Maple Leafs (1939–40)	9–23–4
37	L	February 18, 1940	1–2	Toronto Maple Leafs (1939–40)	9–24–4
38	L	February 22, 1940	1–10	@ Chicago Black Hawks (1939–40)	9–25–4
39	L	February 24, 1940	0–2	New York Rangers (1939–40)	9–26–4
40	L	February 25, 1940	2–6	@ New York Rangers (1939–40)	9–27–4
41	L	February 29, 1940	2–4	Boston Bruins (1939–40)	9–28–4
42	T	March 2, 1940	3–3 OT	New York Americans (1939–40)	9–28–5
43	L	March 3, 1940	0–3	@ New York Americans (1939–40)	9–29–5
44	L	March 7, 1940	1–6	Chicago Black Hawks (1939–40)	9–30–5
45	W	March 9, 1940	3–0	Detroit Red Wings (1939–40)	10–30–5
46	L	March 10, 1940	2–5	@ Detroit Red Wings (1939–40)	10–31–5
47	L	March 14, 1940	4–8	Toronto Maple Leafs (1939–40)	10–32–5
48	L	March 17, 1940	2–7	@ Boston Bruins (1939–40)	10–33–5

^[3]

Player statistics

Regular season

Scoring

Player	Pos	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
Toe Blake	LW	48	17	19	36	48
Charlie Sands	C/RW	47	9	20	29	10
Ray Getliffe	C/LW	46	11	12	23	29
Georges Mantha	D/LW	42	9	11	20	6
Lou Trudel	LW	47	12	7	19	24
Polly Drouin	LW	42	4	11	15	51
Marty Barry	C	30	4	10	14	2
Doug Young	D	47	3	9	12	22
Red Goupille	D	48	2	10	12	48
Paul Haynes	C	23	2	8	10	8
Johnny Gagnon	RW	10	4	5	9	0
Rod Lorrain	RW	41	1	5	6	6
Bill Summerhill	RW	13	3	2	5	24
Tony Demers	RW	14	2	3	5	2
Earl Robinson	RW/C	11	1	4	5	4
William Meronek	C	7	2	2	4	0
Armand Mondou	LW	21	2	2	4	0
Walt Buswell	D	46	1	3	4	10
Cy Wentworth	D	32	1	3	4	6
John Doran	D	6	0	3	3	6
Armand Raymond	D	11	0	1	1	0
Claude Bourque	G	36	0	0	0	0
Wilf Cude	G	7	0	0	0	0
Mike Karakas	G	5	0	0	0	0
Gus Mancuso	RW	2	0	0	0	0
Gordon Poirier	C	10	0	0	0	0
Rhys Thomson	D	7	0	0	0	16

Goaltending

Player	MIN	GP	W	L	T	GA	GAA	SO
Claude Bourque	2210	36	9	24	3	121	3.29	2
Wilf Cude	415	7	1	5	1	24	3.47	0
Mike Karakas	310	5	0	4	1	18	3.48	0
Charlie Sands	25	1	0	0	0	5	12.00	0
Team:	2960	48	10	33	5	168	3.41	2

^[4]

Note:

Pos = Position; GPI = Games played in; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; PIM = Penalty minutes; +/- = Plus/minus; PPG = Power-play goals; SHG = Short-handed goals; GWG = Game-winning goals

Min, TOI = Minutes played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T,T/OT = Ties; OTL = Overtime losses; GA = Goals-against; GAA = Goals-against average; SO = Shutouts; SA = Shots against; SV = Shots saved; SV% = Save percentage;

Awards and records

All-Star teams

First Team	Position
Toe Blake	LW

Transactions

May 15, 1939	To Montreal Canadiens cash	To Chicago Black Hawks Des Smith	^[5]^[6]
October 10, 1939	To Boston Bruins Herb Cain	To Montreal Canadiens Ray Getliffe Charlie Sands	^[5]^[7]
October 11, 1939	To Montreal Canadiens Earl Robinson	To Chicago Black Hawks cash	^[5]^[8]
November 29, 1939	To Boston Bruins George Brown	To Montreal Canadiens cash	^[5]^[9]
January 4, 1940	To New York Americans Johnny Gagnon	To Montreal Canadiens cash	^[5]^[10]
April 26, 1940	To Montreal Canadiens Herb Gardiner cash	To New York Rangers Claude Bourque	^[5]^[11]

Playoffs

They did not qualify for the playoffs

See also

• 1939–40 NHL season

Citations

1. Standings: NHL Public Relations Department (2008). Dave McCarthy; et al. (eds.). THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE Official Guide & Record Book/2009. National Hockey League. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-894801-14-0.
2. "All-Time NHL Results". NHL.com. Retrieved August 25, 2023.
3. "1939–40 Montreal Canadiens Games". Hockey-reference.com. Retrieved June 4, 2009.
4. "1939-40 Montreal Canadiens Statistics - Hockey-Reference.com". hockey-reference.com. Retrieved May 28, 2009.
5. "NHL trades for 1939-1940". NHL Trade Tracker. Retrieved July 22, 2021.
6. Diamond, Dan, ed. (2003). Total NHL. Chicago: Triumph Books. p. 803. ISBN 978-1-57243-604-6.
7. Diamond, Dan, ed. (2003). Total NHL. Chicago: Triumph Books. pp. 498, 572 & 784. ISBN 978-1-57243-604-6.
8. Diamond, Dan, ed. (2003). Total NHL. Chicago: Triumph Books. p. 773. ISBN 978-1-57243-604-6.
9. Diamond, Dan, ed. (2003). Total NHL. Chicago: Triumph Books. p. 489. ISBN 978-1-57243-604-6.
10. Diamond, Dan, ed. (2003). Total NHL. Chicago: Triumph Books. p. 567. ISBN 978-1-57243-604-6.
11. Diamond, Dan, ed. (2003). Total NHL. Chicago: Triumph Books. p. 868 & 878. ISBN 978-1-57243-604-6.

References

• Canadiens on Hockey Database
• Canadiens on NHL Reference