I hate to be that guy but Montreal is a lot better than what people on these boards give them credit for. Some of you want to tank this season again to get another draft pick and the season hasn't even began. People weren't saying stuff like this in september of last year. The idea of tanking didn't even cross our mind because the team seemed improve on paper and last year was just a disaster but I don't think it's a trend for the upcoming years. As much as you want to twist it, this team is definitely not a 28th place team, not at all. The reason we finished that low is due to numerous factors:
a) We purposely threw away the season with a quarter of the season remaining. I don't think trading away players like Cammalleri, Kostitsyn and Gill for assets that improve us long term was suppose to make the team better. By trading those players we pretty much tanked and decided to prepare for next season instead of wasting our time for a irrealistic playoff push. Gauthier could have made desperate trades to save his job and handicap us long term in order to finish higher but he didn't (thank god). If he would have done that we could have very well finished 11th or 12th in the East and 20th in the league.
b) We have a better coaching staff than last year. Cunneyworth was clearly an incompetent coach at the NHL level and didn't have a clue of what it takes to make a team victorious. He didn't want to break up the first line and that hurt the team more than it helped. Sure it helped Desharnais, Cole and Pacioretty reach personal highs in their careers but Plekanec was stuck playing with Ryan White, Mathieu Darche and a Rene Bourque with no confidence. I'm not the biggest Michel Therrien fan but I like the changes he wants to make and he's easily an upgrade over last year's fiasco.
c) Our PP was atrocious but our PK on the other hand was one of the best in the whole league and with the addition of Prust it could be even better. Obviously the loss of Gill could hurt us but in the last stretch of the season, the PK didn't seem to miss him and was just as effective. Anyway last year the Habs were one of the teams if not the team that lost the most games by a single goal. I don't feel like doing the proper research because I'm too lazy but how many games did we lose by a goal and the PP would go 0/5, frankly too many. With a healthy Markov (knock on wood) the PP should go back to being our bread and butter and performing at a 21%-24% of success. Having Kaberle on the 2nd unit will also help a lot since not every team can have the luxury of having a player of his caliber offensively on a 2nd unit. Him and Diaz could be a very good duo on the PP. The big question mark is that every successful PP has a booming shot at the point, if PK plays smarter and doesn't go for power but accuracy the PP will be effective.
d) We had injuries but I'm not really gonna go into details on this one because every team is affected and it's not a valuable excuse. But it'd be tough to beat the 350+ man-games lost to injury.
e) The team couldn't hold a lead to save their dear lives. At one point Montreal almost had .500 record when they were leading after 2, that's just pathetic. With the additions made by Bergevin in the offseason, the team sacrificed a bit of talent on their second line but has a lot more depth in the offense overall. The 4th line actually has an identity now, long gone are the days where Yannick Weber, Aaron Palushaj and Petteri Nokelainen would play on the 4th line to be a bouche-trous. The team now has grit and sandpaper. That depth on our 3rd line and 4th line should help remove workload on Plekanec's defensive duties and also diminish the amount of leads blown by the team.
I believe in this team and I'm actually excited for the season to start. I'm saddened to see that we won't have Travis Moen - Lars Eller - Andrei Kostitsyn as our 3rd line but I'm curious what Armstrong can do on a line with them. Emelin and Diaz should be better than last year since they're no longer rookies. I think this team can finish 6th or 7th, I see them a lot like last year's NYR, a team that will put emphasis on defense and will play a very aggressive style of play. The two glaring weaknesses are that we have no real #2 defenseman, Markov is a big question mark and Gorges is more of a #3 in my opinion. The other weakness is that 2nd line Left Winger spot, right now it probably belongs to Rene Bourque but who knows which Bourque will show up this year.