Canadiens: Three Players Poised For Huge Breakout Season

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The Montreal Canadiens are in the midst of their preseason, so nothing has been set in stone yet when it comes to lines and defense pairings for the upcoming season.

The team still has a pair of preseason games left on their schedule to iron out the final roster spots and tinker with possible combinations for opening night. With 72 players showing up for training camp on day one, it took some time to find the right pieces, but that will come before the Canadiens take on the Toronto Maple Leafs to open the regular season next week.

The Canadiens are returning a lot of the same players who were on the roster last season. Yet, there are reasons to believe the team can be a lot better than the one that finished fifth last in the overall standings last season.

Some of that optimism comes from the few additions the team did make in the offseason. Alex Newhook was brought over from the Colorado Avalanche for a pair of high draft picks and will be given the opportunity to play a big role with the Canadiens.

The Canadiens were also able to convince Sean Monahan to stay for an additional season by re-signing him before he became a free agent. They then acquired Tanner Pearson just before training camp began, which gave them a pair of veteran forwards to help guide some of the younger players on the roster.

On defense, the departure of Joel Edmundson removes a veteran from the team, but it also opens up additional opportunities for the plethora of young blue liners on the team to take on a bigger role.

With such a young roster, we should expect growth from many players on the 2023-24 Canadiens roster, but these three players are due for the biggest breakout seasons of all Habs.

Rafael Harvey-Pinard

Rafael Harvey-Pinard has a hard time convincing an NHL team to take a chance on him when he was playing Junior. Once the Canadiens took him with a late round pick, he quickly rewarded them with great play and showed he was well worth a seventh round draft choice.

The Saguenay, Quebec native played one more season of Junior hockey in the QMJHL with the Chicoutimi Sagueneens before turning pro for the 2020-21 season. He quickly endeared himself to the coaching staff and earned the nickname “Lavallagher” for his tenacious play, goal scoring ability and general attributes that were similar to Brendan Gallagher.

Harvey-Pinard scored nine goals and 20 points in 36 games as a rookie with the Laval Rocket, which matched Gallagher’s point totals and games played when he was a rookie in the AHL.

The undersized winger continued to prove his stature would not hold him back at the pro level when he scored 21 goals and 56 points in 69 games in 2021-22 with the Rocket. Last season, he had 16 goals and 31 points in 40 games with the Rocket before being called up to the NHL.

In 34 games with the Canadiens, Harvey-Pinard scored 14 goals and 20 points. Some might consider that a breakout already, but RHP needs to convince everyone again this season that he is good enough to be a full time member of the National Hockey League.

He may not continue to score goals at the same pace, but he will prove to be as tenacious, hardworking and difficult to contain on the forecheck as just about anyone in the league this season. That would be huge for the Canadiens, and a big step forward for Harvey-Pinard in his career.

Jordan Harris

The Canadiens have a number of young defensemen looking to make their mark at the NHL level this season. Many of them have already played a lot of games last season, but there just isn’t room for everyone.

Just on the left side of the blue line there are Mike Matheson, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj and Jordan Harris. David Savard, Johnathan Kovacevic and Justin Barron hope to play big minutes on the right but we have already named seven and there is only room for six.

Harris played a lot of minutes on the third pairing with Kovacevic last season, but proved to be a steady defensive player, smart positional defender and trusted penalty killer as a rookie. In 65 games, he had just four goals and 17 points, but did prove to be a capable puck mover, but in a slow and steady and not a flashy way. He just makes smart reads and high percentage plays on a regular basis.

Jordan Harris, signed to a 2x$1.4M extension by MTL, is a young defenceman who had put up very strong results in a third-pairing role as a rookie, especially on the penalty kill. #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/k3LCPdYNDT
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) February 10, 2023

He is the kind of player who routinely makes good plays but rarely makes a play where you leap out of your seat. He profiles as the kind of player who could soon turn in to a big minute muncher that can play against tough competition and keep them off the scoresheet while moving the puck up ice for his teammates to create offense.

With Edmundson gone, Harris is going to get a bigger chance to prove his abilities at even strength. This gives the 23 year old an excellent opportunity to prove he can shut things down just as well at five on five as he already does on the penalty kill, which should lead to him taking a big step this season and proving to be a super steady top four defenseman.

Alex Newhook

The Canadiens traded a late first round pick and an early second round pick for Alex Newhook at the NHL Draft. After giving up a couple of big assets for the young player, he is sure to get an opportunity to prove himself.

One thing we know about him already is he can really skate. It is the one attribute that really stands out when watching the 22 year old play. He was a first round pick of the Avalanche in 2019 before playing two great seasons of college hockey with Boston College.

Since then he has had his ups and downs at the pro level. He has scored 20 points in just 18 career AHL games, but has not been able to bring much offense at the NHL level. At least not yet. The Avalanche have been a Stanley Cup contender since he arrived and are not in the position to be patient and wait for a young player to develop as he plays big minutes.

So, Newhook was never really given a prime time look long term. With the Canadiens, a rebuilding team that invested in him and want him to be a big part of their future, he is going to get a long look in their top six. With his speed and skill, he is likely to turn it into a successful NHL season.

Newhook’s career highs are 14 goals which he had last season and 33 points which he had in 2020-21. With him likely starting the season on the top line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield where he will use his speed to create offensive chances for Caufield to blast into the net, Newhook is pretty much guaranteed to blow past his previous career highs.

With the Habs two best offensive players as his linemates, don’t be surprised if Newhook passes his career highs long before the end of the season and is one of the top scorers on the Canadiens this season.

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