Five Reasons Why The Montreal Canadiens Will Finish Last in the Atlantic

Saying that the 2022-2023 campaign was a step up from the previous one is a backhanded compliment – in addition to saying just how painfully awful the Montreal Canadiens were in 2021-2022. Save for beat journalists and media outlets that cater to the Montreal and Quebec markets, no one has written much about the Habs this offseason. From the outside looking in, it’s as if the club was invisible this summer.

How badly does that bode for the new season that looms? Few are picking the Canadiens to accomplish much, seeing the franchise as stuck in a miasma of mediocrity, if not worse.

So here is why the Montreal Canadiens will once again finish last in the Atlantic Division.

While we’re at it, check out our NHL odds for plenty of hockey action.

Montreal Canadiens: The Good News

We’ll be kind enough to make this a “good news vs. bad news” sort of analysis. While it’s tradition to deliver the bad news first, given that there is, unfortunately, more of it, we’ll take a moment to start with the good.

First and foremost, both Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki are back and healthy, with an emphasis on the latter quality. Last year, Caufield’s campaign was cut short due to a shoulder injury that required surgery. He’s also signed on to be a member of the Canadiens for several more seasons, having agreed to an eight-year extension during the summer.

If there is a beacon of hope in the Quebec metropolis, it starts with these two. Caufield was having a breakout year when the shoulder problem hit. Suzuki has been an iron man, playing in all 82 regular season games two years in a row and netting over 60 points each time.

Juraj Slavkosvky has a year under his belt -albeit an underwhelming one – and head coach Martin St. Louis wants to pair him with Kirby Dach to help increase the sophomore’s chances of success.

This is also an opportunity for Samuel Montembeault to establish himself as the clear-cut goalie of the future for the franchise. His numbers last year were passable and at times he played extremely well, but his opportunities are cut short with veteran Jake Allen on the roster. It’s his fifth year in the NHL (two with Florida during which he didn’t play much) and it feels like it’s now or never to show that he can take the mantle.

1. Montreal Canadiens Coaching

The reality is that the Habs fanbase doesn’t have much to cling to other than those elements. It starts and with coaching. Former player and Stanley Cup champion Martin St. Louis took over from Dominique Ducharme in the middle of the 2021-2022 campaign. The team was dreadful then and has remained largely so since.

Is one and a half seasons enough to draw all the conclusions in the world about a coach? Not necessarily, but one would like to witness some sort of improvement. There were matches last season when it looked as though there was no plan B when things went awry. A 7-2 drubbing at home to Buffalo, a 4-0 loss to San Jose (who were terrible last year), the infamous 9-2 defeat in Washington on December 31, a 9-5 loss in Florida, etc. Went things went bad, they went nuclear.

A good coach can right the ship and either course correct or, at a minimum, limit the damage. That rarely happened last season, which begs the question how well equipped, if at all, is St. Louis to navigate rocky waters? Last season it seemed all too often that the players were left to fend for themselves when the scoreline got out of hand.

2 and 3. Discipline and Defence

Coaching issues will, naturally, extend to issues on the ice. The Montreal Canadiens were one of the least disciplined clubs in the NHL last season. They racked up an incredible 955 penalty minutes, putting them as the fifth-most penalized squad in the league. Buffalo and Detroit didn’t make the playoffs either, but they also didn’t take nearly as many penalties as the Habs, so they already have a significant advantage.

This wouldn’t matter if Montreal killed them off more regularly. Their efficiency when down a player was a lowly 72.7 per cent, fourth-worst league-wide. Detroit’s was 78.3, already better. Buffalo’s was bad as well (73.0 per cent) but as alluded to, they didn’t have players sitting in the box nearly as often and therefore didn’t have to worry about their poor performance as much.

With such poor penalty killing (whilst consistently committing far too many fouls), it’s no wonder Montreal gave up so many goals in 2022-2023. The 305 conceded markers made them the fourth worst in the NHL. They were one of only four clubs to give up 300 goals or more. Neither Jake Allen nor Samuel Montembeault had terrific seasons. Allen was 15-24-3 with a GAA of 3.55 and a save percentage of .891. Montembeault was 16-19-3 and compiled a GAA of 3.42 and a save efficiency of .901.

4. Canadiens Firing Blanks

Much like the argument about discipline and penalty killing, poor defensive play can be made up for if a club can put the puck in the net often enough. Montreal didn’t even do that very well, ranking 26^th in goals scored per game with only 2.77.

There is an obvious – and not entirely invalid – counterpoint: injuries. True enough, the Habs were missing one of their two best forwards for the second half of the season, and no one other than Suzuki played more than 69 games.  But even Josh Anderson – the lone 69 games participant – and other players who partook in at least 60 matches like Mike Hoffman and Christian Dvorak didn’t put up great numbers. Granted, Hoffman left for San Jose, but the larger point is “Where will the scoring come from?”

New arrival Alex Newhook could provide an additional spark, but that remains to be demonstrated. It’s nice to know that the Montreal coaching staff and club brass see something in him, but he wasn’t lighting it up in Colorado. If anything he was mildly disappointing the two years he played in the postseason.

5. Atlantic Division Rivals

Unless the good players play even better and the mediocre ones start playing well, which of course can happen, it’s difficult to envision the Canadiens overtaking either the Red Wings, Senators, or Sabres in the Atlantic Division.

None of the other mentioned division rivals – who also missed the postseason – got significantly worse this summer. Buffalo already showed improvement last year and Ottawa believes it has its man in Vladimir Tarasenko. In a market like Montreal, the fans will demand better. Being a division bottom feeder several years in a row is unacceptable. But patience may be a requirement for at least one more year.