Montreal Canadiens: Three Most Pleasant Surprises From Habs Training Camp

The Montreal Canadiens finally wrapped up their lengthy preseason schedule on Saturday night. They will now turn their attention to the regular season opener on Wednesday night.

It was, at times, a long preseason schedule, with the Habs coming out on the losing end of all eight exhibition games. That is quite an accomplishment on its own, and probably a sign of things to come when the regular season begins as well.

Though they literally had an eight game preseason losing streak, it was not all horrible. I mean, the standings don’t matter in the preseason at all, but when a team loses every single game it is a bit discouraging.

Ignoring that fact, and looking forward to the regular season, there were some encouraging signs in the Habs two weeks of training camp. Add in some impressive performances at the rookie camp, and we were fortunate to see the future of the Canadiens franchise first hand.

Thankfully the future looks bright, because the present appears to be a bit of a sluggish mess on the ice. It promises to be a long 2022-23 season for the Canadiens.

But again, there were positives and good things that happened amidst all the losing. There were signs that this team will be fun to watch and that they could get really good in the near(ish) future.

Juraj Slafkovsky was one of those signs. Though his up and down and up again play in training camp doesn’t suggest he is ready to dominate the NHL in 2022-23, he does look like he will be handful for opposing teams to handle for a very long time. It might take him a little while to put all the tools together, but once he does he could become a dominant power winger.

There were bigger surprises in camp that made it a worthwhile journey. Let’s take a look at the three biggest and most pleasant surprises in Canadiens training camp.