Habs is the most interesting team this season
Ever since the preseason, I've been wanting to write about this NHL season and Montreal Canadiens but always kept pushing it down the road. Recent discussions with a friend about the next big team in NHL sparked the inspiration to finally write down my thoughts.
I started keeping an eye on Habs a bit more last season when Patrik Laine joined the team. His injury sidelined him for months so I ended up following the team with a different perspective. Last season wasn't the greatest but towards the end of the season, the team started to show really good progress. The late season push to barely make it to the playoffs through a Wild Card position was a good indicator of what's coming.
This season, the start was fantastic. The team spent quite a while on top of the division and even conference, picking up win after win. Despite the recent slump, I think this team has really big potential going forward.
This team has a really young and exciting core. Players like Lane Hutson (Calder winner as the best rookie last season), Ivan Demidov (rookie stats leader at the time of writing) and Oliver Kapanen (rookie stats 5th place at the time of writing) are future superstars ready to bloom to their potential. Most of the players are 25 or under, still becoming better as they gain experience in the league and with each other.
Players like Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Alex Newhook, Juraj Slafkovsky and Nick Suzuki in the offence and Noah Dobson and veteran player Mike Matheson in the defence are fun to watch on the regular. And I really love the goalie duo Dobes/Montembeault even though there are concerns about consistency.
While Patrik Laine's situation doesn't look too good right now as his expensive - 4-year $8.7M/y AAV contract — is ending this season and the injuries last season and this season combined with him not being able to deliver 5v5, you never know what'll happen in the spring. I'm keeping fingers crossed but not holding my breath.
I'm hoping that Habs is able to keep this core together for years to come and become a contender and even a Stanley Cup winner in the next 5-7 years. It's a long way to go and the team does lack a superstar level talent that they'll probably need to break it to the top. If the team keeps getting better as they have recently, I could see the team making big moves in the next few seasons to bring in someone great to be a cherry on the top.