The THN Yearbook is out, and it predicts some good production for the Montreal Canadiens' core once again this season.
With the new season inching closer and closer, hockey fans will soon start making their draft lists ahead of the next fantasy hockey season. Once again this year, the Montreal Canadiens will have quite a few players worthy of consideration, and in this article, we’ll break down THN’s points production for most of them.
Unsurprisingly, captain Nick Suzuki is predicted to be the Canadiens’ highest-scoring player with 96 points. That would be a five-point decrease from his last season's output, which stood at 101 points. This is a safe bet, given the fact that one 100-point season doesn’t guarantee a repeat performance. Still, Suzuki’s production has improved steadily over the years, and it’s far from outside the realm of possibility that we haven’t seen the best of him yet.
THN’s Yearbook has sniper Cole Caufield as the Habs’ second-highest scorer this season. It projects the American winger to put up 87 points, just under his career-best 88 points last season. It also predicts the winger will find the back of the net 45 times this season, down from his 51-goal total last season. That’s not shocking since, as the publication reports, hitting 50 goals in a season isn’t easy, especially not two seasons in a row. Guy Lafleur did it six seasons in a row, but he’s the exception, not the rule. Steve Shutt had 60 lamplighters once but never scored more than 49 goals in a season after that.
Lane Hutson comes third in THN’s points production for the Habs. The Yearbook has the third-year blueliner putting up 74 points, a slight decrease from the 78-point output he had in his sophomore season. Given the fact that he won’t have a contract negotiation interfering with his focus this time around, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if he were to break the 80-point barrier.
Unlike last season, the Yearbook has sophomore winger Ivan Demidov as the Canadiens’ fourth-highest scorer. The elite playmaker is forecast to make a jump from 62 points to 73, a respectable 11-point increase. Given the fact that the Canadiens have been unable to acquire a top-six player with the ability to unlock Demidov’s full potential this offseason, this seems to be a fair production. As things stand, the Russian wonder is likely to play with Alex Newhook and Oliver Kapanen like last year, and while that’s good for chemistry, the two players won’t really be sitting in the right chair.
The Canadiens have a fifth player expected to put up more than 60 points: Juraj Slafkovsky. The publication projects 68 points, a five-point drop from last season’s output. In the fifth year of his NHL career, I don’t see the power forward taking a step back. On the contrary, I believe he’s poised to take another step forward. Last season was an eye-opener for the big Slovak; he realized he can be more than a complement to the Suzuki-Caufield duo if he plays the right way. Now that he knows how to do that, I expect him to get going right from the get-go and put up points consistently.
In front of the net, fantasy hockey players would do well not to forget about Jakub Dobes. The netminder is predicted to put up 31 wins this season, a slight increase on the 29 triumphs he recorded last year. It’s also worth noting that it has Jacob Fowler down for 17 wins, while Samuel Montembeault doesn’t have a projection.
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