Montreal Canadiens: Can Habs Escape Basement Of Atlantic Division?

The Montreal Canadiens fell to last place in the 2021-22 NHL standings. Last season was better, as they were 28th among the 32 NHL teams when the regular season concluded.

While they improved slightly compared to the rest of the league, inside their own division the Canadiens still finished in last place. To make the playoffs, a team can guarantee a spot by finishing in the top three in their division, and can battle for a wildcard spot if they are in the top five.

The Canadiens are not likely to work their way into a playoff position next season, but can they at least improve a little bit in the division rankings? How high could they possibly finish next season?

They have no chance of catching the Boston Bruins who finished with 135 points last season. The Canadiens had only 68 and even though the Bruins lost some key pieces of their organization, that cap is impossible to close.

The Toronto Maple Leafs finished last season with 111 points and made some improvements to the roster by adding Tyler Bertuzzi and Max Domi among others. They are a Stanley Cup contender and won’t be finishing behind the Canadiens next season.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are eventually going to see this run come to an end but they just have too many elite players at every position for the Canadiens to keep up over an 82 game schedule.

The Florida Panthers were just good enough to make the playoffs and then went on a magical run to the Stanley Cup Final. They have several key players injured to begin the season, such as Aaron Ekblad, and though Sergei Bobrovsky was fantastic in the postseason he was not great in recent regular seasons. Still, the Panthers are just better than the Canadiens right now.

So, without really diving into anything, it seems obvious the Canadiens are not finishing in the top four. That leaves the Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings.

The Sabres missed the playoffs by just one point last season and have a fantastic group of young players throughout the lineup to build around. While many are predicting a playoff season in Buffalo, it doesn’t always work that a young team just gets better every year. They do have unproven, but high potential in goal with Devon Levi, but the Habs goaltenders have proven to be about .900 save percentage guys at the NHL level so I don’t like the Habs chances of passing the Sabres in 2023-24.

The Senators are in a somewhat similar position as the Sabres. They missed the playoffs by six points after a dreadful start, but brought in Jakob Chychrun to greatly improve the defense and signed Joonas Korpisalo to give them more reliable goaltending. Any way you look at it, the Senators just have a better team than the Canadiens.

That just leaves the Red Wings, who are also projected to be better. They also… made a lot of weird roster construction decisions. The “Yzerplan” seems to be a decision to sign all mediocre free agents to inflated contracts. Do JT Compher, Shayne Gostisbehere and Justin Holl make them better? Maybe, but most GMs do a lot better work with $12.625 million. Ville Husso struggled in his first season as a starter so the Red Wings brought in James Reimer to be his backup. That’s guaranteed to go poorly.

Still, the Canadiens are built around young forwards, an incredibly young defense and mediocre goaltending. I could easily see them finish above the Red Wings, but that’s it in the Atlantic Division. Unless a team like the Senators or Sabres is riddled with injuries, the Canadiens have no chance of finishing in the top six in the division.

The Red Wings goaltending may allow the Canadiens to sneak out of the basement of the Atlantic Division for the first time since 2021, but that would be as high as they could climb.

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