After a Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021, the Montreal Canadiens came crashing back to earth early in the 21/22 season. The Habs cleaned house and the new regime immediately kicked off a rebuild. Only a couple of seasons into it, how is Montreal’s roster shaping up?
Roster Ruminations
NHL Roster
The Canadiens have struggled in a big way since their magical playoff run just three seasons ago. Next year’s team is projected to be near the middle of the pack in the early projections, although there’s reason not to get too excited just yet. The projected possession metrics are poor, particularly on the defensive side, and the Habs will have to correct that. Rosters also have all UFAs stripped from them, of which the Canadiens don’t have many of note.
Salary Cap Management
The Canadiens haven’t had a ton of cap space to work with in the early stages of their rebuild. They did find enough to acquire and flip Sean Monahan, though, which netted them a pair of first round picks. Their tight cap situation is starting to ease. Going into the 2024-2025 season, the Canadiens have roughly 20% of their cap space available and they have only a few contracts of medium term or longer.
Future Assets
The Canadiens have put together an impressive pile of future assets. Hockey Prospecting ranks the Habs prospect pool 2nd in the NHL and it includes a number of prospects with significant start potential. They also aren’t done building the incoming cohort, with one of the best draft success profiles for the next three summers. Most of that draft capital is held in the 2024 and 2025 drafts, where the have four first round picks and another eight picks in the second and third rounds combined.
What’s Next?
The Canadiens hitched their wagon to Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki early in their rebuild. At age 23 and 24 respectively, they’re running out of development runway and it’s increasingly looking like the Habs are still in need of some truly high end forwards. Suzuki and Caufield are fine players and should fit nicely into their long term plans but they aren’t dominant enough to be the key drivers of a contender.
The Canadiens will need to find some additional star power to fill out the forward ranks of their incoming cohort. 2022 first overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky is there, looking much better in the back half of the 2023-2024 season. There are also a few good prospects in the system but there’s still a need for more firepower up front. The good news is all those draft picks the Canadiens have collected. They’ll have an opportunity to collect a few more pieces over the next couple of summers, including with this year’s 5th overall pick.
While the Canadiens need to add forwards to their incoming cohort, they’ve already put a focus on the blue line and compiled a healthy collection of young defensemen. Kaiden Guhle and Jayden Struble, both 22, are among the group of young Dmen the Habs are already deploying at the NHL level and there are more in the system. Hockey Prospecting has the Habs top 4 prospects all defensemen, including Lane Hutson and 2023 5th overall pick David Reinbacher.
The Canadiens have started their rebuild from the back end. They need a couple more seasons to finish putting their contention cohort forward group together and then some time for the new cohort to develop.
