The Montreal Canadiens rebuild has progressed to the next stage. Many young players and prospects have been identified as foundational pieces. They have been at the bottom of the standings for two years now and have added some exciting young players to the organization.
Their 23 and under club has potential franchise cornerstones in Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Juraj Slafkovsky, Kaiden Guhle and David Reinbacher. The team also boasts exciting secondary pieces with high upside like Alex Newhook, Lane Hutson and Logan Mailloux and loads of depth options behind them.
The future appears to be bright and the hope is that a Stanley Cup contending team is not far off in the future. However, it should be kept in mind that no team has ever won a championship with young players alone. The average age and experience level of players on Stanley Cup winners from the past 20 years is 27.4 years old and 5.5 years of NHL experience.
That means you need some graybeards to bring up that mean. For every young star like Brayden Point or Nathan MacKinnon or a Cup winning squad, there is also an experienced, veteran voice in the room like Patrick Maroon or Erik Johnson who bring a lot more value to a team that just what is done on the ice.
While you can always add more experienced players down the road, there are several under contract with the Canadiens right now. As they become unrestricted free agents over the coming seasons and the Canadiens enter their competitive window, will any of them be part of the team’s long term future? Which veteran players should the Habs be looking to deal as soon as possible and which one’s are ideal leaders to keep around for a little while longer?