The Montreal Canadiens Have Made All The Right Moves So Far.
Few in the United States appreciate this, but one of North America’s most dominant sports franchises actually resides in the French-speaking province of the land north of the border. Quebec’s Montreal Canadiens have won twenty four Stanley Cup titles, second only to the New York Yankees for number of championships won by a North American sports franchise. Hanging in the rafters of their arena, the Bell Center, are the numbers of some of the greatest players to have ever picked up a hockey stick; Guy LaFleur, Maurice “Rocket” Richard, Ken Dryden and many more.
However, the Canadiens are now decades removed from their days of dominating the hockey world. 1993 was the last year that they lifted the Stanley Cup (no Canadian team has won since then), and they have failed to even reach the Stanley Cup finals since that time. In the past decade, the Canadiens have had some success, reaching the Eastern Conference finals in 2010 and 2014, but that is cold comfort to a fanbase raised on memories of dynastic glory.
The Canadiens missed the playoffs in both 2017–18 and 2018–19, and looked on track to miss yet again in the 2019–20 season. But 2019–20 was, of course, no normal season, with COVID-19 necessitating a months-long pause followed by an expanded playoff format in two bubbles. The expanded playoffs included twenty-four teams, and Montreal made it in with the twenty-fourth best record.
Once in the bubble, the team showed that it had more to offer than many would have thought. Goaltender Carey Price showed why he should still be considered one of the world’s best, and the team’s young centers Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi showed their potential to be the next cornerstones of the franchise. The Canadiens upset the heavily favored Pittsburgh Penguins in the play-in round, and gave the top seeded Philadelphia Flyers a very tough six game fight in the first round of the playoffs proper.
Many Canadiens fans lamented the team winning the play in round, as it cost their team a chance to win the NHL’s draft lottery and thus the ability to take Alexis Lafreniere, the most hyped Quebecois prospect to enter the league in years, with the first overall selection. But to others, including, evidently, general manager Marc Bergevin, the promise the team showed in the bubble was well worth losing a chance at Lafreniere.
However, Bergevin did recognize that a number of moves would need to be made in order to build on that promise and help his team secure yet another berth in the playoffs- if not making a deeper run in 2020–21. The theme of the Canadiens’ offseason emerged quickly- that being to increase the team’s depth across the board, at all positions.
Nowhere was this more critical than the goaltending position. As good as Carey Price is, the Canadiens have for years struggled to find a suitable backup, which has resulted in Price overplaying and his effectiveness being compromised later in the season. To address this, Bergevin acquired Jake Allen from the St. Louis Blues- in 2019–20, Allen had posted a .921 save percentage and 2.15 goals against average, making him one of the league’s best backups. So far in Montreal, he has lived up to that billing, posting a .940 percentage and 1.81 GAA.
Other key moves were made with the intent of giving the team’s young centers more weapons along the wing. A key signing thus far has been that of Tyler Toffoli, who was brought in on a four year contract worth $17 million. So far this season, Toffoli has been one of the leading goal scorers in the NHL- hilariously, most of his goals so far have come against his former team, the Vancouver Canucks.
A somewhat riskier move involved trading away Max Domi, who had been the team’s leading scorer in 2018–19, to the Columbus Blue Jackets for Josh Anderson. In 2018–19, Anderson had scored 27 goals while providing a mix of physicality and speed at the right wing position. However, in 2019–20 Anderson suffered a series of injuries, playing only twenty-five games and scoring one goal. Considering this history, trading Domi for him and then giving him a seven year contract extension did raise some eyebrows around the NHL as a risky move, but so far it has paid off in 2020–21, as Anderson has played very well on a line centered by Nick Suzuki.
The Canadiens have made other moves to upgrade their depth as well, both at defense and forward. Defenseman Joel Edmundsson, acquired from St. Louis, has been one of the league leaders in plus-minus (number of times a player is on the ice for a goal his team scores vs. goals scored against), although that is a controversial and often-criticized statistic. Veteran forward Corey Perry, acquired for minimal salary, has performed well for the team so far, particularly on the power play.
As of this writing, the Canadiens sit in a close second place in the all-Canadian North Division, just a single point behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were the preseason favorites to win the division. Suzuki, Anderson and Toffoli anchor a balanced, effective offense. On defense, Jeff Petry is the NHL’s top scoring defenseman so far, and rookie Alexander Romanov has been a significant contributor on that end as well.
The Canadiens are set up to be a strong team not just now, but in the future as well. In addition to the young players already on their roster like Suzuki, Kotkaniemi, and Romanov, they also boast a strong farm system, ranked sixth out of thirty-one teams by The Athletic’s hockey prospect analyst Scott Wheeler. Montreal has a long way to go before they can recapture the glory years of times past, but due to the short and long term moves they made this offseason they are in the best position as a franchise that they have been in for several years.
