Canadiens defenceman Alexandre Carrier finally got his first goal at the Bell Centre Saturday night — 20 years after he had his first great scoring chance.
When Carrier was 8 and playing minor hockey in Varennes on Montreal’s South Shore, his team was invited to play one of the mini-games during the intermission of a Canadiens game at the Bell Centre.
“I had a breakaway,” Carrier recalled. “I remember the crowd got excited and then I fumbled the puck and it ended up nothing happened. I didn’t score.”
After being selected by Nashville in the fourth round (115th overall) of the 2015 NHL Draft, Carrier played seven games at the Bell Centre with the Predators, but never scored a goal. In his 18th game with the Canadiens after being acquired from Nashville in exchange for defenceman Justin Barron on Dec. 18, Carrier finally scored at the Bell Centre — and it was a beauty.
With the Canadiens losing 3-2 to the New Jersey Devils three minutes into the third period Saturday, Nick Suzuki won a faceoff in the offensive zone back to Kaiden Guhle, who passed across to Carrier for a one-timer that beat Devils goalie Jake Allen. The Canadiens would end up losing 4-3 in overtime.
“It was a real beautiful moment,” Carrier said about his goal, adding it would have been even better if the Canadiens had won in OT.
“There’s no place like here, honestly,” Carrier said. “I’m from here, so I knew it was going to be like that. There’s no better feeling than scoring at the Bell Centre.”
Carrier is keeping the puck and the stick he used to score the goal. Since joining the Canadiens, the 5-foot-11, 174-pound defenceman has 1-8-9 totals in 18 games to go along with a plus-8 differential while averaging 20:19 of ice time. In 28 games with Nashville this season, Carrier had 1-6-7 totals and was minus-14.
Carrier didn’t get to attend many Canadiens games as a kid growing up in Varennes, but he does remember clearly the few times he was fortunate enough to get tickets. His favourite Canadiens players were forwards Alex Kovalev and Saku Koivu, in large part because Carrier was a forward until switching to defence when he was around 12 and playing peewee hockey.
“Honestly, it still feels like a dream,” Carrier said about now playing for the Canadiens. “Now we have a little stretch at home, so it’s going to feel more like I’m playing here. But it’s been crazy. Being able to live this with my family and friends and my wife working here and everything, it’s just unbelievable. We couldn’t ask for a better place to be at.”
The Canadiens will be back in action Tuesday at the Bell Centre against the Winnipeg Jets (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS) with the Minnesota Wild coming to town on Thursday (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS).
The three-game homestand means Carrier will be able to spend some time with his wife, Dr. Alicia Lessard, who co-owns a public family medicine practice in Côte-St-Luc and used to split her time between Nashville and Montreal when her husband was playing for the Predators. Carrier and Lessard first met through mutual friends when they were about 14 and he was attending École secondaire De Mortagne in Boucherville and she was at Collège Français in Longueuil.
“This is amazing for her,” Carrier said. “We’ve been together (as a couple) for almost 10 years and we’ve been living long distance for so long. So it’s cool to finally be together and live this together.”
When Carrier was playing in Nashville, his wife would stay with him when the Predators were at home and then return to Montreal when they went on the road.
“Now she’s got a full-time winter here as well,” Carrier said with a grin, “but she’s very happy.”
Carrier added that he and his wife enjoyed the time they spent in Nashville over the last seven years.
“The thing that marked us the most was how warm the people were, actually,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a great city … it’s growing so much. There’s always something to do and family and friends always wanted to come and visit. But it was really the people there … they were just so welcoming. You know how they say in the South people are warm? That was the case.”
Now, Carrier is getting used to being recognized around Montreal — something that almost never happened in Nashville.
“It’s not as bad as I thought, actually,” he said. “It’s cool. It’s fun to play in front of a fan base that’s passionate like that.”
The Canadiens had a day off on Sunday, so Carrier and his wife had a chance to sleep in at the condo they have owned for several years on the Lachine Canal that they can now call their year-round home.
“We like taking it easy,” he said. “We love coffee and t+
here’s a coffee shop right beside our house that we always go to. So grab a coffee, grab a croissant. We love the morning … just relaxing. Go for a nice walk.”
This is turning into a real nice homecoming story.