Montreal Canadiens: Winning is Nice, But Habs Don’t Want To Ruin High Draft Pick

The Montreal Canadiens season was a complete mess for the first few months.

Many nights they looked completely lost, especially defensively, and were down a goal or two before the first commercial break of the game.

By the time the season was a month old, this Canadiens team has crashed from Stanley Cup Finalist, to league doormat. They sat at the bottom of the standings early in the season, and have not been able to escape 32nd place ever since.

Though they are coming quite close to doing so. Moving up in the standings is usually a great thing for any team, but right now, it would not be ideal for the Canadiens. The Habs have 20 games left to play, and while you never want to lose them all, continuing to win at the rate they have been could quickly vault them past half a dozen teams.

The Canadiens started the season 8-30-7 before firing head coach Dominique Ducharme. Martin St. Louis would lose his first three games behind the bench, dropping the team to 8-33-7 after 48 games.

Since then, the Canadiens are 9-3-2. Their .714 points percentage in that time, from February 16th to today, is third best in the entire National Hockey League, behind just the Boston Bruins and Calgary Flames.

Overall, the Canadiens remain in 32nd, but they are now just one point back of the Seattle Kraken and Arizona Coyotes. In fact, there are a handful of Eastern Conference teams that are suddenly in the Habs sights.

The New Jersey Devils and Ottawa Senators are just six points up on the Canadiens. The Buffalo Sabres are seven points ahead of the Habs and the Philadelphia Flyers are ahead by eight.

At their current rate, the Canadiens could jump all of these teams by early April. That would put them 26th in the league standings and in line for the 7th overall draft pick.

While winning in nice in competitive sports, when an NHL team wins just eight of its first 48 games, the best thing for the long term success of the franchise is to finish last and get the best odds at a top draft pick.

The past 14 games have been great to watch and have revealed some key things about this franchise going forward. Most notably, Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki are the dynamic duo that we all thought they were at the beginning of the season. In fact, they are so much more than we ever believed.

We want to continue to see that, but we also want the team to lose more than it wins. I’m not saying we want them to lose every single game. But, going like 8-12-0 while losing a bunch of games 4-3 or 5-4 would be ideal.

This way, Caufield and Suzuki could continue filling the net. Jonathan Drouin and Christian Dvorak could provide some offence as well. But at the same time a mediocre defence and Samuel Montembeault could combine to allow enough goals to lose.

Then, the Canadiens return next season with Carey Price in goal, a rebuilt blue line through free agency and trade, and Shane Wright as the team’s numbest two centre.

Finishing last doesn’t guarantee a team the first overall pick. However, it does guarantee them a top three pick and gives them better odds than anyone else of selecting first overall.

The Canadiens were one of the worst teams ever for 48 games this season. The only possible thing that could make that worthwhile would be selecting Shane Wright with the first pick at the 2022 NHL Draft at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

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