Montreal Canadiens: Contenders or Pretenders?

The Montreal Canadiens have started the 2018/19 NHL regular season much better than anyone could have predicted. Playing to a 5-2-2 record leaving them just two points off top spot in the Atlantic division as October comes to an end but can they continue to play at this level for another 5 months?

The only way to know for sure is, unfortunately, to sit and wait. I personally don’t think the Montreal Canadiens have the personnel to earn 12 out of every 18 possible points. However, I also didn’t think the Las Vegas Golden Knights would make the playoffs last season either and we all know how that ended up.

What do the Montreal Canadiens have to do to make the playoffs?

Simply put, win. But in the interest of analysis, the Montreal Canadiens are going to have to continue to attack in waves. The biggest thing working in the Habs’ favour is their speed which seems to be taking teams by surprise.

They send out Max Domi, Jonathan Drouin and follow that up with Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher, and Tomas Tatar. When you combine those four players with the likes of Victor Mete and Noah Juulsen attacking from the back end, the Canadiens are just loaded with top end speed which really wears teams down over a full 60 minutes.

The Canadiens average a little more than 32 shots on goal per game which puts them at 12th in the NHL in that regard, and obviously, the puck doesn’t go in the net without shooting it at the net.

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In order for the Canadiens to have continued success though they are going to have to improve their special teams. Their power play is operating at under 20% (19.4 to be exact) which is 19th in the NHL and for such a speedy team who tend to draw a lot of penalties, they need to be able to convert on more than 19% of their chances. Ideally, that number would be sitting at 23%. That would be another 34 goals on 150 power play attempts which adds another six goals.

The Montreal Canadiens penalty kill hasn’t been very good this season thus far. If they are going to contend for the playoffs this season they are going to have to increase their penalty killing from 74.2% to at the very least 80%.

In a perfect world, the Canadiens could improve their penalty killing to just around 85%. Continuing on the idea that 150 is the number of penalties taken operating at 74% means you as a team are allowing 39 power play goals against. Using the same 150 operating at 80% would have the Canadiens allowing 30 power play goals, and 23 power play goals against if they perform at 85%.

In order for the Montreal Canadiens to make sure they continue to be contenders in the Atlantic Division, special teams will be a focus. Claude Julien has already made alterations as far as who goes where and improving faceoff percentages can be a big factor.

If the Montreal Canadiens can improve on their specialty teams I have a hard time imaging this team isn’t a playoff team come April.