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Montreal Canadiens: Can This Team Compete Next Year Like Marc Bergevin Believes?

By Ken MacMillan

WINNIPEG, MB - DECEMBER 23: Tomas Tatar #90 of the Montreal Canadiens is all smiles as he celebrates his first period goal against the Winnipeg Jets at the Bell MTS Place on December 23, 2019 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The Habs defeated the Jets 6-2. (Photo by Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images)
WINNIPEG, MB - DECEMBER 23: Tomas Tatar #90 of the Montreal Canadiens is all smiles as he celebrates his first period goal against the Winnipeg Jets at the Bell MTS Place on December 23, 2019 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The Habs defeated the Jets 6-2. (Photo by Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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The Montreal Canadiens look like they are going to miss the playoffs for the third straight year and fourth time in five seasons. Can they make the playoffs next year like Marc Bergevin believes?

The Montreal Canadiens will miss the playoffs for the third straight year this year. It will be the fourth time in five years that there is no playoff hockey in Montreal. Habs general manager Marc Bergevin believes the team can compete next year, but fans are skeptical.

The trade deadline passed yesterday with the Canadiens selling minor assets that were likely to leave the team as free agents this summer anyway. No major changes were made by the team’s general manager, though many fans wanted to see bigger trades and a real rebuild started.

The two players that were most speculated to be worth trading for a return of prospects and draft picks were Tomas Tatar and Jeff Petry. They both have one more year left on their current contracts and could have fetched large returns. Instead, Bergevin just tinkered slightly, trading Ilya Kovalchuk, Nate Thompson, Matthew Peca and Nick Cousins while adding third, fourth, fifth and seventh round draft picks and an ECHL forward.

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None of those picks are going to move the needle the way many fans wanted to see. It was hoped first round picks and top prospects would be flooding to Montreal in the past few days, but we got a few late round draft picks and that’s about it.

In his press conference following the trade deadline passing, Bergevin referred to the desire to compete next season a few times during that meeting with the press as the reason he did not trade Tatar or Petry.

Competing next season seems farfetched. Why would this team that could not make the playoffs last season or this season, or the year before that suddenly be good enough to make the 2021 postseason? Also, is it really competing if all you do is sneak into the playoffs?

Well, there are few reasons for optimism heading into next season, but a lot of things would have to go the right way for the Habs to compete.

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