Are the Habs closer to being a contender or a bubble team?

[HabsWhiteKnightLOL]

Weird thing to say but the are not in the playoffs if they dont learn to win against bad teams.

What do you mean they went 0-4 against the big red wings 2 years ago

 

[Naslund]

A multi-year contender is when Guhle, Mailloux, Norlinder, Romanov, Suzuki, KK, Caufield and Poehling are peaking.

 

[TeacherMan]

We're a Danault replacement away from comfortably making the playoffs and being a real threat once we make it there.

 

[Zorba]

If you have to ask the question you are not a contender…

Great point

 

[Zorba]

A multi-year contender is when Guhle, Mailloux, Norlinder, Romanov, Suzuki, KK, Caufield and Poehling are peaking.

You realizing not all of them are gonna succeed, right?

 

[barbu]

Due for another 3rd OA pick.

 

[JianYang]

I may be too optimistic but I think we'll fight for the 3rd and 4th spot in the Atlantic with Boston and Toronto.

Suzuki will be close to PPG. Kotkaniemi will be entering his 4th season at only 21 and I believe he will finally have his first really good season. I expect Romanov to explode and impress us. I also like the depth this team has on all 4 lines. As stated before, Weber had a horrible season last year and I think we improved with Savard and a better Romanov. Price and Allen is a great duo as well.

We're a Danault replacement away from comfortably making the playoffs and being a real threat once we make it there.

Top 6 center plus a top 4 PMD is needed to talk about the possibility of getting in "comfortably".

 

[Chili]

An old saying: You can replace the talent, but you can't replace the man

Believe Shea Weber will be missed, both on and off the ice. Hard to see them going far with the centres at present. Could use more depth at centre and the blueline. X factor will be the young players and who takes a step forward.

Still time to upgrade but status quo, could be a dogfight to stay in the playoff race in this division.

 

[GrandBison]

What do you mean they went 0-4 against the big red wings 2 years ago

Even in the Canadian division last year... they are the reason why some people think the sens are not that bad...

 

[Miller Time]

Right now... about the same or worse than last year... so playoff bubble.

Biggest variable will be 5 young guys. Suzuki, CC, JKO, Evans & Romanov.

If each take a step forward, we're a playoff lock and maybe even contend if the steps are big enough.

But that's a tall order. More Likely that 1 or more make little to no progress & 1 or more regress. Development tends to be uneven early career.

Defense is worse than last year and still lacks pmd skill. Danault & perrys absence will hurt, Weber, Byron will also be missed.


Hoff hopefully will Replace or be an upgrade on Tatar, but Savard & Perreault are not adequate replacements for what we lost.

 

[BehindTheTimes]

I liked our team outside of the d last year. Thought we had a good set of forwards despite lacking a star. I think we are worse this year.

 

[CHwest]

Lottery team.

 

[MSLs absurd thighs]

I mean... looking coldly at our situation...

- We still have Pricer in net. This is good
- We replaced Weber with Savard. That's a downgrade, but last regular season, Weber really has not been a good player at all for us.
- We replaced Tatar with Caufield and Hoffman. That's a major upgrade.
- We lost Danault and replaced him from within. That's a downgrade.

That being said, guys like Evans I am confident will take a step forward. KK is a huge question mark. And Suzuki, barring à total disaster, is ready for prime time.

I'll go ahead and say if we can add a good middle-6 C we might not be contenders. But we're definitely a bit more than a bubble team.

Drouin, Hoffman, Toffoli, Anderson, Gallagher and Caufield on the wings is no joke. Pratically unmatched in the whole league in terms of depth.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

We'd be so much better with a real top pairing. Petry and Edmunson are a good number two pair.

Forwards are okay - center is suspect but great wingers. Price is Price. Just wish we could build the D.

An average team that will have a difficult time making the playoffs.

No puck movers on D, huge holes at center and no blue chippers in Laval.

I think you’re right. Average team in a tough division. If we give Price some defensive support though, it might be enough. Hopefully he gets off to a better start than he did last year. His strong play would be undermined too often with soft goals. Hopefully the surgery doesn’t impact him.

 

[NicRattlehead]

Weird thing to say but the are not in the playoffs if they dont learn to win against bad teams.

Although I'm optimistic for next season I agree with this completely. Especially with a team like Ottawa. It's weird but the records indicate that we should kill a team like Ottawa yet when I watch them they have some pretty decent players, especially offensively with Tkachuk, Batherson, Norris, Brown, and Stutzle amongst others. Their Goalies definitely suck and I don't think their defense is amazing.....this is where we should take advantage. The Ottawa Senators are pesky, especially against the Habs. We need to step up against them and other bad teams next year for sure.

 

[OB5]

There is no way they are done adding. I think they absolutely have to add a center to replace Danault and he said he wants to add a puck moving defenseman. Until the puck drops to start camp I think anything is possible, maybe even the regular season if they see certain players aren't ready to fill in. Having said that, as it stands the Habs are not a top three team in their division and are not a lock to be a wildcard team.

 

[angusyoung]

Kind of would like to see the other teams lineups in the division to properly make an educated guess. Don't want to write the Habs off yet but they should score more and have a better PP.

 

[Schwang]

Bubble. Very little offence coming from the back end, bad on face offs, lack of experience at centre. Price during the regular season is still a question mark for me as well.
This team badly needs a high draft pick (Wright or Bedard).

 

[JoelWarlord]

Closer to bubble team but I'm not sure we're even a bubble team this year. To me bubble implies close to the playoffs but just missing by a few points, something like the low 90s if the last playoff spot is 96 points or something. I'd guess the average/midpoint projection should be in the 80-84pt range, and then you can adjust up or down from there. If everything goes right I'd say that would give us an upside projection of a bubble team, and if things go wrong we'd probably be in ~70 point territory as a bottom 7 or 8 team just above the handful of tankers.

I don't think that's a bad thing though, I'm very happy with everything the Habs did in free agency. Bringing back a solid player for average money in Armia, signing a few cheap depth forwards, Hoffman as a PP shooter, and a reasonable ish contract on Savard are all fine moves to me. Everything so far is pretty much the best case scenario for Bergevin going into this offseason with Weber and Danault to replace. Fixing all that along with the existing problems for the team in one offseason would have basically meant selling the farm for vets and throwing absurd money around. Other than Hamilton there's not really any big move that's happened this offseason I wish the Habs were in on.

 

[MtlSars]

People are saying we're worst than last season as it is.

We simply aren't

We didn't have Calder winner Goal Caufield for the whole season, we'll see what a difference legit offensive talent cant have.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Closer to bubble team but I'm not sure we're even a bubble team this year. To me bubble implies close to the playoffs but just missing by a few points, something like the low 90s if the last playoff spot is 96 points or something. I'd guess the average/midpoint projection should be in the 80-84pt range, and then you can adjust up or down from there. If everything goes right I'd say that would give us an upside projection of a bubble team, and if things go wrong we'd probably be in ~70 point territory as a bottom 7 or 8 team just above the handful of tankers.

I don't think that's a bad thing though, I'm very happy with everything the Habs did in free agency. Bringing back a solid player for average money in Armia, signing a few cheap depth forwards, Hoffman as a PP shooter, and a reasonable ish contract on Savard are all fine moves to me. Everything so far is pretty much the best case scenario for Bergevin going into this offseason with Weber and Danault to replace. Fixing all that along with the existing problems for the team in one offseason would have basically meant selling the farm for vets and throwing absurd money around. Other than Hamilton there's not really any big move that's happened this offseason I wish the Habs were in on.

Not even Jones? I would've given up Romanov plus a few picks.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

People are saying we're worst than last season as it is.

We simply aren't

We didn't have Calder winner Goal Caufield for the whole season, we'll see what a difference legit offensive talent cant have.

Cole Caufield is not a defenseman!

 

[JoelWarlord]

Not even Jones? I would've given up Romanov plus a few picks.

Not a huge fan of Jones personally. I think he's a good player but I'm just not sure I see this top 10 stud defenceman that seems to be his reputation and what Chicago paid for. I would have been open to Romanov + 31 + other futures but given what Chicago paid I don't think there was a realistic offer where I would have been comfortable with the price.

 

[Canucky]

There is no way they are done adding. I think they absolutely have to add a center to replace Danault and he said he wants to add a puck moving defenseman. Until the puck drops to start camp I think anything is possible, maybe even the regular season if they see certain players aren't ready to fill in. Having said that, as it stands the Habs are not a top three team in their division and are not a lock to be a wildcard team.

Don't be surprised if this season again is covid challenged.

 

[ArtPeur]

I mean... looking coldly at our situation...

- We still have Pricer in net. This is good
- We replaced Weber with Savard. That's a downgrade, but last regular season, Weber really has not been a good player at all for us.
- We replaced Tatar with Caufield and Hoffman. That's a major upgrade.
- We lost Danault and replaced him from within. That's a downgrade.

That being said, guys like Evans I am confident will take a step forward. KK is a huge question mark. And Suzuki, barring à total disaster, is ready for prime time.

I'll go ahead and say if we can add a good middle-6 C we might not be contenders. But we're definitely a bit more than a bubble team.

Drouin, Hoffman, Toffoli, Anderson, Gallagher and Caufield on the wings is no joke. Pratically unmatched in the whole league in terms of depth.

Pros:

We should have better PP numbers than last season, even without Hoffman. There were already some positives when Caufield started to play on it. That said, Savard doesn't play on the PP.
Montreal was 17th last season.

Cons:

The PK should be much worse as we lost Weber, Danault and Byron. Aside from Savard, Bergevin didn't sign anybody to help it. They also lost their main faceoffs guy. Danault was on the dot for more PK faceoffs than everyone else in the team combined.
Montreal was 23rd last season.



(I'm not sure if we will be a better 5v5 team)