A Winning Habit
Fansided

Reasons for Optimism Abundant for Habs Despite Playoff Exit

By Sebastian High

MONTREAL, QC - NOVEMBER 01: Jesperi Kotkaniemi #15 of the Montreal Canadiens celebrates a victory with goaltender Carey Price #31 against the Washington Capitals during the NHL game at the Bell Centre on November 1, 2018 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Washington Capitals 6-4. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
MONTREAL, QC - NOVEMBER 01: Jesperi Kotkaniemi #15 of the Montreal Canadiens celebrates a victory with goaltender Carey Price #31 against the Washington Capitals during the NHL game at the Bell Centre on November 1, 2018 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Washington Capitals 6-4. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images) /
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Montreal Canadiens
MONTREAL, QC – NOVEMBER 05: Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images) /

Let us start with the captain. Shea Weber was tied for third on the team in points, with five, three of which were goals. He did his fair share of heavy-lifting offensively. Defensively, he played as he always does, physically and intelligently. He showed us all why 10% of players voted him the best defensive defenseman in the league just this year. Weber sported a 54.23 xGF%, a 60 GF% and a 52.69 CF%, and all this against the very best that Pittsburgh and Philadelphia could throw at the Habs. If his decline truly is in full swing, it didn’t show in these 10 games.

Carey Price has, for the time being at least, truly silenced his critics. The newly-turned 33-year-old put up the best playoff performance of his NHL career, saving 93.6% of shots and sporting a GAA of 1.78. Put simply, Price dominated. It is truly criminal that his performances couldn’t squeeze the Habs into the second round; unfortunately, many of the Montreal Canadiens’ offensive weapons failed to step up. If they had, Montreal could have won the series in 5 or 6 games.

As unfortunate as this is, it does lead to optimism and excitement for this Habs team for the upcoming seasons, when Price and Weber are still great players, when Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi form a dangerous 1-2 punch down the middle, when the defensive corps is stabilized and when Cole Caufield adds a true scoring threat.

Marc Bergevin may make moves this offseason as a result of his team’s performance to accelerate this retool since the team is closer to contention than many thought just a mere month ago. Trading opportunities will arise, and free agency may be rather interesting this season with forwards such as Taylor Hall and Mike Hoffman potentially being available and with defensemen like Alex Pietrangelo and Torey Krug possibly needing to find new teams.

In all honesty, I would be surprised if a big offensive addition is not made this offseason, given that the team has struggled to score consistently, and the defence has been solidified by Brett Kulak and will be further reinforced by Alexander Romanov. Also, expect a proven backup goaltender to be signed; Anton Khudobin, Corey Crawford and Thomas Greiss could all be excellent options. Bergevin said, upon the Canadiens’ elimination, that signing a quality backup is near the top of the offseason list of priorities.

And us fans may not have to wait until the playoffs conclude to see the Montreal Canadiens begin to make moves. Renaud Lavoie stated that Marc Bergevin has made it clear that teams eliminated from the playoffs are free to make trades.

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