Number of followers on Instagram: four CH players in the NHL top-25

As the NHL’s most historic team, the Montreal Canadiens have always been one of the most popular. On Instagram, the team is holding its own. In 2018, it ranked seventh among the circuit’s teams with the most subscribers, and in 2023, it still ranks seventh.

Four of the other five original teams are ahead of Montreal, with the Red Wings just behind in eighth.

But what about NHL players? Are Tricolore players as popular as the club?

Nhljerseyz, an Instagram account lent itself to the exercise and revealed the 25 league players with the most followers. Four CH players are among them. These four players don’t even include captain Nick Suzuki.

They are Carey Price (15th), Cole Caufield (17th), Brendan Gallagher (24th) and… Juraj Slafkovksy (25th).

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Suzuki, who has 175,000 followers, is just over 100,000 followers behind his teammate and 25th on this list. He still has some crusts to eat.

Seeing Carey Price, Cole Caufield and Brendan Gallagher isn’t too surprising, though.

On the one hand, Carey Price has long been the heart and soul of the team, the franchise’s winningest goaltender, and so on. I can list reasons all evening.

Brendan Gallagher has been in the league for a long time and he too has been an important player on the team. He’s not the most active on social networks, but from time to time, we see him sharing his private life with his subscribers.

And of course, there’s Cole Caufield, a crowd favorite. I’m sure he has several girls in his subscriber base.

But for Juraj Slafkovksy, his 25th place on this list is a bit of a surprise. The Slovakian has 276,000 subscribers. I wonder how many he had before being selected by the Montreal Canadiens?

Of course, Slaf has an entire country behind him. Of all the Slovaks drafted in the NHL, he was drafted the earliest and made history in his own way. And as the first overall pick in a draft, it’s only natural that you gain a few subscribers afterwards.

With 1,670,376 subscribers, Alex Ovehckin is at the top of this ranking. In addition to being an excellent player, he is very active on social media and his political history (with Vladimir Putin, in particular) attracts a lot of attention.

Connor McDavid (1,107,025) and Auston Matthews (803,094) complete the podium. Only two NHL players have over a million subscribers, so… It’s a different story from the NFL and NBA, anyway…