I was a voice crying in the wilderness last year when I predicted that the Canadiens would make the playoffs.
It was an audacious call because this was a team that had missed the playoffs in each of the three previous seasons, never finishing higher than 28th in the 32-team National Hockey League.
But I had faith in the continued development of the talented young core assembled by Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes. I was excited by the addition of Patrik Laine. And I was confident head coach Martin St. Louis could pull it together.
The Canadiens made me look good by wrapping up the last wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with a 4-2 win over Carolina in their final regular-season game. Montreal lost to Washington in five games in the first round of the playoffs, but they set up the next step in their rebuilding project.
The mantra going into last season was that, win or lose, the Canadiens would be fun to watch. On a scale of one to 10, the fun level this season should be 11. A playoff berth is all but certain and I see the team winning at least one round in the post-season.
Defenceman Lane Hutson became the first Canadien to win the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie since the late Ken Dryden won in 1972. Montreal shouldn’t have to wait as long for its next winner because the ultra-skilled Ivan Demidov has arrived after taking the top rookie honour in the KHL.
Demidov is ready for the NHL and the only question is whether his teammates are ready for him. He has high-end vision and the other players on the ice have to be prepared for his passes.
Gorton and Hughes have added three former first-round draft choices — puck-moving defenceman Noah Dobson and forwards Zachary Bolduc and Joe Veleno. All three have above-average speed and will fit in with St. Louis’s uptempo, puck-possession philosophy.
Look for a major improvement on the power play. Montreal ranked 21st last season, scoring on 20.1 per cent of its chances. The first unit accounted for 35 of the team’s 47 power-play goals, with Laine (15 goals) and Cole Caufield (10) leading the way.
With additions of Demidov, Bolduc and Dobson, and a healthy Kirby Dach, the Canadiens will have the ability to use two dangerous power-play units. There is also the potential of having more opportunities with the extra man because Demidov and Hutson have the ability to draw penalties. In the exhibition game against Ottawa on Tuesday, the Canadiens had 10 power plays and Demidov drew three of them.
Montreal Canadiens’ Kirby Dach checks Ottawa Senators’ Nick Cousins during pre-season game in Quebec City on Sept. 30.
Dach, who is the player with the most to prove this season, had one of the three power-play goals against Ottawa, but his shining moment came after he coughed up the puck while on the power play. The miscue resulted in a 2-on-0 break, which was thwarted when a determined Dach took chase and dove to knock the puck off Shane Pinto’s stick.
It was an impressive effort for a player coming off knee surgery. Dach is only 24, but injuries have sidelined him for almost 200 games over his six-season career. He’s going into the final season of a four-year deal with the Canadiens and is running out of opportunities to show he deserved to be the third overall pick in the 2019 draft.
There should be some concern about the penalty kill. The Canadiens had the ninth-best PK record last season and they needed that because they were the third most-penalized team. The Canadiens will be starting from scratch because they have lost three key members of the penalty-killing unit — defenceman David Savard and forwards Joel Armia and Christian Dvorak.
Jake Evans, Josh Anderson and Mike Matheson will be the leaders on the PK. Matheson has been the team’s workhorse, but he’ll get more time to rest because Hutson and Dobson have bumped him from the quarterback role on the power play.
There are two highly touted prospects who will not be in Montreal to start the season.
Goaltender Jacob Fowler was among the first wave of players sent to the Laval Rocket. The plan is to give him a lot of work in the AHL. He’ll be back up in case of injury or if Jakub Dobes falters.
Defenceman David Reinbacher, the fifth overall pick in 2023, is on the injured list after breaking a bone in his hand. He needs time to develop, but a knee injury limited him to 23 games in Laval last season and he’ll miss at least three more weeks with the latest injury.
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