Race for the Bottom
The Canadiens enter the final month of the regular season at the bottom of the NHL standings. That isn’t ideal, obviously, but it does give them a unique opportunity.
When a team has a bad year, the best thing that can come out of it is a great draft pick. It takes a lot more than one great draft pick to build a franchise, but most of the top teams in the east started at the bottom.
The Lightning drafted Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman with top two picks. The Toronto Maple Leafs grabbed Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner in the top four. The Penguins have been a powerhouse since taking Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in the top two. The Washington Capitals took Alex Ovechkin first overall. The Hurricanes drafted Andrei Svechnikov second overall. They also have some Jesperi Kotkaniemi guy they took third, but he only has 26 points this season.
The goal entering a season should never be to finish last and hope to get a good draft pick. But when a team enters the final month of that season in last place, the best thing to do is stay there.
Now, I’m certainly not advocating for the Canadiens to start shooting pucks into their own net and lose on purpose. Nobody does that. Except for the Buffalo Sabres when they tried to get Connor McDavid.
We still want to see Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki scoring every night. We want Alexander Romanov to continue to develop into a top pairing blue liner. We want Christian Dvorak to get going and Rem Pitlick to keep scoring. We want Jordan Harris to play well on the back end. But we still want to find a way to lose 4-3.
Finishing last doesn’t even guarantee the top pick, so it makes no sense to start a season hoping to finish last. But since the Habs are here, finishing last in the standings would guarantee them a top three pick. It would give them the best odds at selecting first overall and taking Shane Wright who would fix an awful lot of problems down the middle of the ice.
The Habs have some company at the bottom of the standings. The Arizona Coyotes are tied and Seattle Kraken are one point up on the Canadiens.
If the Canadians leapfrog these two teams, and have some bad lottery luck, they could find themselves picking 5th overall.
After such an awful season, picking 5th would not be the reward the Canadiens deserve. While finishing at the bottom of the standings would not guarantee a first overall pick, it would ensure the Canadiens pick in the top three and that’s where we want to see them end up.