Future is Bright for the Montreal Canadiens
With the Canadiens season coming to a close, many are taking a look back trying assess what happened. It all began in October with relatively low expectations and little hope for a post-season appearance. But that changed rather quickly as Montreal hovered around a playoff spot all season long.
Despite a ninety-six point regular season campaign, the Canadiens have missed the playoffs for the third time in four years. They were eliminated on April 5th when the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the New York Rangers in a shootout.
With Montreal unable to add to their Stanley Cup total, who will lift the holy grail in June?
On Tuesday night, the Blue Jackets eliminated the Tampa Bay Lightning, sweeping the President’s Trophy winner. With the Bolts out of the picture, one of the most trusted aggregators has made two teams favourites to grab the Cup this time. They are the Calgary Flames and Boston Bruins with odds to win Stanley Cup listed at 8/1 and 9/1 respectively. If interested, you can check out the lucrative welcome offers from the aggregator.
Coming back to the Montreal Canadiens, I can see two areas that require improvement.
Power-play
The Habs excelled at five-on-five scoring for the first half of the season and then struggled in the new year. Even-strength scoring dried up particularly in the final weeks when it was needed most.
But it was the Canadiens woeful power-play that received the most criticism. While Dominique Ducharme and Kirk Muller received most of the heat, it was the players on the ice who deserved the scorn.
There was a laundry list of failures that resulted in a 30th ranked power-play: poor faceoff efficiency, neutral zone turnovers, failed zone entries, poor decision-making and a reluctance to go to the net.
Jonathan Drouin was expected to be a major contributor but had a dismal season on the power-play with only three goals. Drouin was guilty of turnovers and poor decision-making.
The Canadiens look forward to their young, skilled players taking over as Marc Bergevin builds for the future. Jesperi Kotkaniemi surprised many with a strong rookie season. The Habs signed Ryan Poehling who followed with an impressive NHL debut. Both will play a significant role in the success of the Habs of the future.
Back-up goaltending
It has been well documented that Carey Price had another Vezina-worthy season. From November, Price was one of the top goaltenders in the NHL. And for the full campaign, Price led all goaltenders in save contribution rating and goalie points share.
As Habs goal-scorers struggled, Price almost single-handedly carried the Canadiens to a playoff spot. Price played 66 games and was tops in the league in minutes played.
Still, there is no doubt that a better quality backup goaltender would have helped Montreal pick up a few extra points that could have meant a post-season appearance. By the numbers, Antti Niemi was the worst backup in the NHL.
Marc Bergevin would have been better served by going with Charlie Lindgren from the start of the season. That will be a no brainer in this fall.
But Bergevin could also have cheaply added an upgrade to the goaltending position at the trade deadline. That one failure to act could have cost his team a playoff spot.
For next season, the Canadiens will have two goaltending prospects in Laval, named Michael McNiven and Cayden Primeau.
Despite their failure to make the playoffs this season the future seems bright for the Montreal Canadiens.