Montreal Canadiens: What Has to Happen For Habs to Make Playoffs Next Season?

Joshua Roy clicks on top line

It would be tempting to go sign a big fish free agent like Johnny Gaudreau after dealing away Armia and Hoffman to save cap space. However, the Canadiens will be much better off if a younger, cheaper player clicks on the top line.

The best teams around the league the past few seasons are led by an incredible first line. The Boston Bruins have the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak trio. The Avs have MacKinnon between Landeskog and Rantanen. The Lightning play Brayden Point with Nikita Kucherov and it isn’t even fair they are allowed to have a third player on the line.

The Canadiens have a great duo with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki clicking this season. But they need a third member to join that line and score like a legit first line NHL talent. Josh Anderson looked good there for a little while and Rem Pitlick fits fine, but they don’t score near a point per game like Suzuki and Caufield have been.

The Canadiens need another elite offensive talent on the top line to give them a terrific scoring threat every night. That player might be in the system already, but he needs to surprise in training camp to show he is ready for a big role at the NHL level right now.

Joshua Roy was a 5th round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft but he has quickly shown he should have been selected much earlier. The 18 year old winger has scored 97 points in 53 games in the QMJHL this season and is leading the league in points.

If Roy can click on a line with Suzuki and Caufield in training camp, it would give the Canadiens an elite scoring line that would provide offence on a nightly basis.