A Winning Habit
Fansided

Predicting the Montreal Canadiens Top 9 for the 2020-2021 Season

By Joseph Gentile

MONTREAL, QC - FEBRUARY 27: Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
MONTREAL, QC - FEBRUARY 27: Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 4
Next
Oct 6, 2018; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Montreal Canadiens Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 6, 2018; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Montreal Canadiens Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports /

First Line

LW Tomas Tatar- C Phillip Danault- RW Brendan Gallagher

It’s a safe bet to assume that Claude Julien will stick to what works and keep his top line from the past two seasons. Tatar, Danault and Gallagher have shown to be the team’s most consistent and reliable trio night in and night out.

Tomas Tatar has played the best hockey of his career since joining the Canadiens with 58 and 61 points respectively in the last two seasons.  Also, he was the team’s most productive player on the powerplay this season with 14 points.

Phillip Danault has proven himself to be one of the league’s top two-way centers, ranking sixth in this year’s Selke Trophy votes. This season, he posted a team-leading +18, which ranked 28th overall in the league.  He led the team in short-handed ice time for forwards with 2:31 minutes/game. He boasted a 54.5 faceoff percentage, being Julien’s go-to guy during defensive zone faceoffs. His stellar 200-foot game allows for his wingers to go on the offense and make mistakes, He shows that he can make his teammates better.

He was also on pace for a career year in point totals with 47 points in 71 games as opposed to his 53 points in 2018-2019 where he played a full season

Brendan Gallagher has shown to be one of the teams most reliable, most efficient, and hardest working players ever since his rookie year in 2013. He was a 30-goal scorer in the 2018 and 2019 seasons and was on pace to achieve over 25 this year after finishing with 22 goals with just 11 games left to be played. Gallagher has shown to be a gem on the powerplay, averaging just over 2 minutes per game being that ‘pesky, in-your-face’ type forward in front of the net.

However, one thing that he can improve on is his shooting percentage, leading the team with a total of 226 SOG, resulting in a lowly 9.73% success rate. He has always struggled with this statistic throughout his career, but he shows that the harder you work, the more it pays off and who could argue with that?

With Gallagher now having signed his precious 6-year extension with the team, we know that he is committed. He’s in this for the long haul and we can expect more of his hard-nosed play for years to come.

Home/Analysis