Montreal Canadiens: Tomas Tatar Having One of Best Habs Seasons in 25 Years

The Montreal Canadiens haven’t had a superstar forward in many years. Tomas Tatar may not be a superstar, but he is having one of the best seasons we have seen in Montreal in many years.

The Montreal Canadiens are not having a banner year. They have had many occasions in their illustrious history to celebrate great seasons but this will not be one of them. For the third consecutive year, they are going to be on the outside looking in when the puck drops on the playoffs.

It is going to be yet another long grind through the month of March and early April watching games that really don’t matter for the Habs. There have been a lot of negatives around the Canadiens this season, but one positive has been the strong play of Tomas Tatar.

Tatar was acquired from the Vegas Golden Knights in September of 2018. He was basically a throw-in to a trade that saw Max Pacioretty sent to Vegas and brought Nick Suzuki, Tatar and a second round pick to the Habs organization.

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Tatar played the first eight seasons of his professional career in the Detroit Red Wings organization. He proved to be a consistent 20 goal threat, and was traded to Vegas at the 2017-18 trade deadline for first, second and third round draft picks. It was quite a haul for an expansion team to give up, and though they marched all the way to the Stanley Cup final that year, Tatar never really fit in.

He scored four goals and six points in 20 games during the regular season and then added a goal and an assist in just eight playoff games while sitting as a healthy scratch for the rest of the Golden Knights magical run.

Vegas decided to add him into the Pacioretty trade and the Habs have been the beneficiary. Tatar scored 25 goals and set a career high during his first year in Montreal when he had 58 points. That was just the appetizer for Tatar.

The 29 year old left winger has already topped that point total this season with 61 in 67 games. This had him on pace for 75 points. That is a pretty solid season. In fact, 75 points is a number we have rarely seen in Montreal in the past 25 years. Of course, Tatar left last night’s game early so if he is indeed injured it will be impossible, but if he is back in the lineup tomorrow night, he could reach 75-80 points.

Since Mark Recchi and Vincent Damphousse both reached 80 points in 1997-98, we have only seen one Montreal Canadiens player score more than 75. That was Alex Kovalev in 2007-08 when he put up 84 points. Saku Koivu reached 75 points in 2006-07, but Kovalev is the only player to play a full season and average over a point per game since Pierre Turgeon and Damphousse had 96 and 94 points in 1995-96.

On the one hand, it shows how great of a season Tatar is having. On the other hand, it truly highlights how few offensive stars the Canadiens have had since they traded Damphousse, Recchi and Turgeon as quick as Rejean Houle could snap his fingers.

With all the trade speculation surrounding Tatar in the lead up to the trade deadline, his actual production was lost in the noise. Yes, the Habs could have received a great return if they traded their top scorer before last Monday’s deadline.

However, if he finishes the season as strong as he has played all year long (health will be a big factor), he will trail only Kovalev in points by a Canadiens player since 1997. It has not been a great season for the Canadiens and we all got caught up in the trade hysteria when we saw Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow traded for first round draft picks.

However, if you take a look at what Tatar has brought to the Habs this season, it is extremely impressive. Maybe general manager Marc Bergevin knew what he was doing when he decided not to trade Tomas Tatar.