The Montreal Canadiens have a strong young group of NHL players, and they can add to that this off-season. But they have a steep hill to climb before contending for the playoffs, writes Adam Proteau.
The Montreal Canadiens are at a middle-of-the-road competitive building point. They're not bad enough to secure the NHL’s No. 1-overall draft pick but not good enough to be projected as a playoff team.
You might (and we do) refer to that place in the pecking order as the NHL’s “mushy middle.” But there are degrees of mushy-middle pain, as some teams arrive there after falling out of playoff contention, while other teams’ trajectories are straight upward, through the mushy middle on their attempt to get to the top.
The latter scenario is where the Canadiens are now. GM Kent Hughes and president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton are steering the team in the right direction.
There’s an exciting group of youngsters now aboard – up-and-coming kids, including forwards Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky Kirby Dach and newly extended Cole Caufield, and defensemen Kaiden Guhle and Arber Xhekaj. They’ve also got a number of veterans who Hughes might dangle on the trade market to accelerate Montreal’s full rebuild.
To wit: winger Brendan Gallagher has four more years on his contract, but the 31-year-old winger’s $6.5-million cap hit (as per CapFriendly) isn’t going to break the bank for some teams, especially if Montreal retains a portion of his salary. And winger Josh Anderson has a $5.5-million cap hit for the next four seasons, which is part of the reason why he’d bring back an excellent collection of assets, some of whom could be in the Canadiens’ core in short order.
Meanwhile, veteran winger Mike Hoffman also is under contract, but he’s only signed for one more season at a hit of $4.5 million. If Hughes can find new homes for any or all of them, he’ll open up as much as $16.5 million in cap space. Combined with star goalie Carey Price having his contract continue to be placed on long-term injury reserve, Montreal could have upwards of $26.5 million to spend. That could facilitate all sorts of trade and free agency moves.
Team brass obviously wants to get the team into the playoffs sooner than later, but it’s difficult to see Montreal in a post-season spot for the 2023-24 campaign. Let’s remember, for all the good the Habs had in 2022-23, they still finished 24 points out of a playoff position – and they were the worst team in the Atlantic Division, finishing 14 points behind the seventh-place Detroit Red Wings.
This isn’t a Canadiens team that only needs one or two accomplished veterans to get into the post-season. There are significant holes in the lineup, and there are legitimate questions that have answers Montreal fans won’t like.
That said, it’s clear the Habs are a young team that will probably add another couple of high-end youngsters in the next few years – prospects including the No. 5 pick in this year’s NHL draft. In that draft position, they’re going to get a very good young player, but not a generational type of talent. There’s no savior coming for them in this year’s draft. But, so long as their draft and development team produces above-average results this summer – they’ll have ample opportunity to do so with two first-round picks and seven picks from the second round through the fifth round – the Canadiens will be a better team in short order.
There’s still going to be pain ahead for the Habs this coming season, and it’s difficult to envision them leapfrogging over the Red Wings, Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres, Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning for one of the Eastern Conference’s playoff berths. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not going to make headway in the Atlantic. There’s well-founded reason for optimism, but optimism alone won’t get you far in hockey’s top league.
You need depth and above-average talent to win it all, and the Canadiens don’t have enough of it yet to truly contend for the playoffs, let alone the Cup.