Montreal Canadiens likely to have Carey Price only on #NHLTopPlayers list

The NHL Network has begun to rank players based on position, and the Montreal Canadiens will likely only have Carey Price representing them.

Nothing causes controversy and hard feelings between fan bases like a good ol’ player ranking. Is Nathan MacKinnon better than Sidney Crosby? Is Carey Price still the top goaltender? The NHL Network is back at it again ranking the top 20 players in the league based on four positions: centre, wing, defence, and goal. The NHL has so far gotten the first two lists out, and to no surprise, there were no Montreal Canadiens on either list.

There was no intended sarcasm behind that last sentence. The NHL had a lot of centres put up big numbers and have incredible impacts on their team. Max Domi broke out this season, setting career highs in goals (28), assists (44), and overall points (72), but it was one season. The majority of the players on the top 20 list have years of dominance under their belt or had such an overwhelming presence at a young age like Elias Pettersson and Sebastian Aho.

No Habs on the Top 20 Wingers list is a lot easier to justify. The highest scoring wingers on the team this past season were Brendan Gallagher who put up 33 goals and Tomas Tatar who finished with an overall 58 points.

It’s really hard to argue why any of the wingers on the Montreal Canadiens should be ahead of any of the players named on that list. Phil Kessel was last at number 20, and he had an 82-point season! Perhaps Domi finds himself in that conversation if pushed back to the wing while maintaining his offensive output, but until then, the Habs aren’t at the point of having a winger of that pedigree.

(But who knows what Nick Suzuki will bring down the line).

The final two lists will rank defencemen and goaltenders, and it looks like the Montreal Canadiens won’t be on the former either. The NHL Network tweeted a graphic asking who is the top defenceman in the NHL right now using the ‘NHLTopPlayers’ hashtag.

On it had names such as Erik Karlsson, Victor Hedman, Seth Jones, and Rasmus Dahlin to name a few, but no one from the Habs. Shea Weber was always part of this conversation, and in many respects still is after his immediate impact after coming back from injury. However, he has been surpassed by others around the league who are continuing to solidify their own steak in the game.

Jeff Petry is a similar but different story. He is an older player but has gotten better each year starting back at the 2017-18 season. Petry isn’t talked about much as he hasn’t hit the 50-point mark, however, as I looked at it in a previous post, he deserves more credit and hype and would likely get it if the team’s power-play improved.

It’ll likely be a Montreal Canadiens-less Top 20 Defenceman list but the same shouldn’t and won’t be said for goaltending.

Carey Price is getting on the list, it’s just a matter of where he ranks. Price finished the season with a .918 save percentage and was run into the ground towards the end of the year to get the Habs into a playoff spot. He had his bumps along the ride, and some of it can be attested to defensive miscues, but Price is still the guy and will continue to be the guy in these kinds of lists.

It’s the same reason why he’s been the sole Montreal Canadiens representative at the NHL All-Star Game. The league still recognizes his superstar talent in net, and that’s not likely to change.

Hopefully, what does change are the number of Habs who can qualify for these lists in the future. Many will say these lists don’t matter, and in the grand scheme of things, they don’t. Weber is still a top defenceman in the NHL, and nothing should take away from what Domi did at centre.

What this round of #NHLTopPlayer suggests is what Habs fans already know. The Montreal Canadiens need more undeniable superstar talent. They have several options already and through the system, and it’ll be interesting to see who becomes the first to get that recognition aside from Carey Price.