League 1st NHA Goals for 104 General Manager George Kennedy | 1915–16 record 16–7–1 Goals against 76 Coach Newsy Lalonde | |
The 1915–16 Montreal Canadiens season was the team's seventh season and seventh of the National Hockey Association (NHA). After finishing last in 1914–15, the club rebounded to win the league championship and win the Stanley Cup for the first time.
Contents
Regular season
The Canadiens revised their lineup after finishing last. Ernie Dubeau, Jimmy Gardner and Harry Scott retired. The Canadiens added Howard McNamara and Goldie Prodgers on defence. Jack Laviolette moved to forward from defence. Lalonde would have an outstanding season, leading the league in scoring with 31 goals and Georges Vezina would improve his GAA to 3.2, second in the league to Clint Benedict. The team would win all of its last seven games (and eleven of the last twelve) of the season to take the league championship.
Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF= Goals For, GA = Goals Against
Playoffs
The club won the league outright to proceed to the Stanley Cup championship.
Stanley Cup Finals
The series was held in Montreal, it being the turn of the NHA champion to host the series. The games were held at the Montreal Arena.
Roster
‡ also played rover
† missing from team picture
Stanley Cup engraving
Even though they officially did not win the Cup during this season, the Rosebuds had the words "Portland Ore./PCHA Champions/1915–16" engraved on the Cup after obtaining the trophy from the previous year's champions, the Vancouver Millionaires. This was similar to the practice prior to 1915 when the trophy was officially passed on to the winner of the league championship of the previous Cup champion's league.
After the finals, "Canadians/NHA & World's Champions/Defeated Portland/1915–16" was added to the Cup (Note that the anglicized, singular form of "Canadiens" was engraved).