The latest Montreal Canadiens Roundtable dives into what the team needs to do to make the playoffs, Claude Julien‘s decisions and prospects to look out for.
The Montreal Canadiens are right in the heat of things as they continue their fight to compete in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs. As much as it’s surprising to see them in this position, it’s really not.
The Habs rarely go back-to-back seasons without playing games in April (well deep April) and considering they missed last year; the pattern would’ve had them back in. However, the thought process going into the summer was that a pseudo-rebuild or retool was on the horizon for the Habs.
It showed in the number of picks they had at Dallas seeing them add Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Alexander Romanov, and Jesse Ylonen to name a few. It continued with their lack of big moves on July 1st heading into the regular season when they moved Max Pacioretty to the Vegas Golden Knights. All that made Tomas Plekanec‘s comments on the team making the playoffs a little ridiculous even though Carey Price was expected to have a bounce-back year after the performance he had in 2017.
And now we’re in March with the Montreal Canadiens playing meaningful games while having a crop of prospects who look to be on the cusp of accomplishing some great things professionally.
Of course, there are always questions, and the cast here at A Winning Habit have a few to answer.