The Montreal Canadiens have had a difficult few years in the NHL. A thin roster, inexperience, and injuries have all combined to deal the Habs a bad hand or two or 20.
Sean Monahan re-signed with Montreal over the off season, and his healthy presence is essential to the Canadiens making a U-turn.
Last season, the Habs were flirting with a .500 record, Monahan was injured, half the club followed with injuries, and the Habs finished near the bottom of the NHL standings for 2022-23.
“We had a lot of injuries last year, so you never know where the team actually could have went,” Monahan said. “Coming in healthy with everybody in the lineup it’s going to be exciting. And they’ve done a great job building the team and the style of play we’re going to be playing.”
That epidemic of injuries left the Canadiens with a host of young, eager, and woefully inexperienced defensemen including Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris, Johnathan Kovacevic, and Justin Barron.
Those young defensemen will continue to benefit from the blueline leadership of veterans Mike Matheson and David Savard.
“We’re young on defense, we were often young last season,” Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes said. “We think our young players gained a lot of experience last season because of the injuries and they’re ready for more of a workload this year.”
One addition up front, Alex Newhook from the Colorado Avalanche, should provide some consistency to the forward lines.
“I think Montreal’s style fits my game pretty well, playing off the rush,” Newhook said. “I’m a guy that likes to attack with speed in every area of the game and I think being able to bring that speed to a rush-attacking team and a team that likes to play transition, I think it’s exciting, yeah. I think it’ll be good for me, and it will be good for the team to just kind of have another guy that can play off the rush and create offense.”
The Canadiens have one prospect possibly ready to step back up to Montreal.
Forward Juraj Slafkovsky is expected to make the club in Montreal this season. It will not be his first effort in Montreal. Last season was ended in January with a knee injury. He had iced in 39 games with 10 points on four goals.
“I know what I need to work on, what type of player I am, I know my size and everything, I just need to make it work all together,” Slafkovsky said in April. “In this League it’s very specific, and I’m just trying to find a balance between all the things I can do. And the coaches are helping me to find the best version of myself so I can help the team win.”
The Canadiens will be leaning on Jake Allen and Sam Montembeault in goal. That’s a tall order. Neither was supported by a seasoned defensive corps last season.
Allen went 5-24-3 with one shutout in 2022-23, a 3.55 goals-against-average and an .891 save percentage.
Through 40 games played last season, Montembeault went 16-19-3 with a 3.42 GAA and .901 save percentage in 40 games.
“I think with the roster that we have, we’re in a position to improve on what we did last year,” Hughes said. “And where that takes us, hopefully we’re a lot healthier than we were last year and we’ll see what happens.”
It’s a big ask for the Canadiens make it to the playoffs this season. The Atlantic Division is going to more competitive this year. Montreal still has holes to fill, and experience added to their young core of future heroes.
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