The Montreal Canadiens reached the midway point of the season with a record of 8-26-7.
It certainly isn’t where the team expected to be halfway through the season. After a run to the Stanley Cup Final, the Canadiens were hoping to push for another playoff berth.
Sitting last in the NHL standings has the team falling well short of expectations. It also leads to the question, who hasn’t fallen short of expectations on this team this year?
While the expectations for the team would have been to compete for a playoff spot, each individual player would have their own expectations when it comes to production. When you look at the Habs scoring list, is anyone performing better than we expected them to this season?
Nick Suzuki was leading the team in scoring at the midway mark, but he had only eight goals and 24 points. He is on pace for 16 goals and 48 points over a full season. After signing an enormous contract extension that kicks in next season, a step forward in production was expected from the young centre but he is scoring at a lower rate than last season.
Tyler Toffoli is next up on the team’s scoring chart, but he is well behind his goal scoring exploits of last season. He had 28 goals in 52 games last season and has just seven goals in 30 games played when the Habs hit the middle point of the season. He does have 21 points in that time which has him scoring at a rate that would see him put up 57 points over a full season. That’s about what would have been expected points wise, but he is not putting pucks in the net at the frequency we thought he would.
Jonathan Drouin has 20 points in 32 games which has him on pace for 51 points over a full season. That’s probably a handful of points less than we would have expected but not far off his potential.
Artturi Lehkonen has 15 points in 38 games and is playing terrific defensive hockey. That is a 39 point pace over a full season which would be a career high so Lehkonen is definitely playing above expectations.
Anyone else? Christian Dvorak, Josh Anderson, and Mike Hoffman are scoring less than half of a point per game which is worse than anticipated. Brendan Gallagher had just ten points in 25 games before being injured in the first year of a massive six-year contract.
Joel Armia and Cole Caufield have just one goal apiece.
Jake Evans was unfairly asked to take over Phillip Danault’s role at the start of the season but he hasn’t had a productive season at all.
Ryan Poehling was expected to make the roster out of training camp but didn’t. He has looked fine, but not great since being called up after a brief stint in the AHL.
There are a couple of goalies with more points than Cedric Paquette and he hasn’t helped the penalty kill at all.
Nothing at all was expected of Michael Pezzetta and he has shown to be a fine depth winger at the NHL level so that is a pleasant surprise.
On defence, Jeff Petry is having the worst season of his career.
Ben Chiarot and David Savard have been fine but have also been on the ice for an awful lot of goals and scoring chances against.
Brett Kulak, who once looked confident playing top four minutes alongside Petry can barely stay in a depleted lineup.
Alexander Romanov is a young defender who has shown some obvious growth. There is a combination of skating and physicality that will take time to unlock but Romanov is heading in the right direction.
Chris Wideman has scored ten points in 28 games which is basically what was expected after winning Defenceman of the Year in the KHL last season.
It is hard to blame goaltenders for the Canadiens current situation, but none of them have been given the chance to look good while playing in front of this team.
Is that it? Lehkonen has scored a little more than we expected, Romanov has stepped up and Pezzetta came out of nowhere to score four goals? No one else has played above preseason expectations this season?
How does a team end up having almost every single player play worse than we thought they would at the start of the year? In a lost season, we barely even have a feel good story to follow for the rest of the year.