20 Montreal Canadiens

The Canadiens have not won the Stanley Cup in almost a decade, but their 24 championships and nearly unbroken lineage of homegrown greats—from Maurice Richard to Jean B�liveau to Guy Lafleur to Patrick Roy—still prompt Montrealers to refer to them as Les Glorieux: The Glorious. Now, six years after Roy's unceremonious exile, the franchise has another bauble on this string of stars, a goaltender with matinee-idol looks and prime-time skill, Jos� Th�odore. In 2001-02 Th�odore became the third goalie in history to win the Hart and Vezina trophies in the same season. ( Dominik Hasek of the Sabres and another Montreal demigod, Jacques Plante, are the others.) With his sparkling .931 save percentage, the 26-year-old Th�odore apparently mesmerized even teammates: Montreal was outshot in 58 of the 76 games in which he started (including postseason matches).

Th�odore should have more help this time around. After facing so much adversity last season—captain Saku Koivu's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the clothesline that knocked out winger Richard Zednik in the first playoff round and some poor coaching by Michel Therrien that may have cost the Canadiens a shot at an Eastern Conference finals berth—Montreal enters '02-03 with a cancer-free Koivu and its deepest team since the mid-1990s. More good news: The league's announced crackdown on obstruction should favor a club of smurfs that ranked 15th among last season's 16 playoff qualifiers in regular-season goals. While the Canadiens' squishy defense will suffer with the early-season absence of their most physical blueliner, Sheldon Souray (wrist surgery), it opens a spot for puck-moving rookie Ron Hainsey.

General manager Andr� Savard has rebuilt the infrastructure that crumbled shamefully during the previous regime, but this is still a finesse team that was exposed in the playoffs as being incapable of handling robust forwards or beating big defensemen. Still, if too-small Montreal earns a playoff berth—which won't come easily because so many other Eastern Conference teams are improved—a goalie will lead them. Do you know the way, Saint Jos�?

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