Canadiens: Three Players Outperforming Expectations This Season

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The Montreal Canadiens are off to a better start than expected this season. After 11 games they sit just outside the Eastern Conference playoff picture with a record of 5-4-2.

Things looked even better a week ago when they were 5-2-1 after eight games but a tough three game road trip out west added three losses to the team’s overall performance. Still, they have 12 points in 11 games which projects to 89 points at season’s end.

That would probably be not quite enough to make the postseason, but it would keep the team in the race for the entire season and see them fall just short in the final few games of the season.

After falling to last place in the NHL standings two seasons ago and only improving to fifth from the bottom last season, being on the fringes of the playoff race would be a huge improvement. There is no way of knowing if the team can continue to stick around the middle of the pack, but they are definitely a little higher in the standings now than many people expect them to be at season’s end.

Why are they performing slightly better than expected? When you factor in the fact Kirby Dach played a game and a half before being injured for the season, perhaps they are well ahead of expectations. Whatever the case, they are playing better than we thought, but why? There are a few reasons.

There are a handful of players that are leading the way that were not expected to be performing at this level. There are always pleasant surprises for teams each season and the Canadiens have a few of their own early in 2023-24.

Who is performing above all expectations so far this season? Let’s take a look at the Canaidens top three players who are outperforming their expectations after 11 games.

Jake Allen

Jake Allen is known as a terrific teammate and a great veteran to have on a rebuilding roster. Even though the team struggled the past two seasons, a player with experience, including being on the Stanley Cup winning roster for the St. Louis Blues in 2019, is a great boost for the younger players on the team.

It would be easy for a young group of blue liners to get dejected and down on themselves after losing a couple of lopsided games. But Allen gives them a voice of reason that allows them to focus on the big picture and take things one game at a time.

While that is all well and good and valuable for a team that lost a lot over the past two seasons, it did not lead to great numbers for Allen on the ice. He arrived in Montreal in 2020 and helped the team reach the Stanley Cup Final in 2021. He kept the team afloat when Carey Price was hurt and allowed the team’s star netminder to take his time returning from injury.

Last season, Allen played 42 games and had a 3.55 GAA with a .891 SV%. The previous year he had a 3.30 GAA with a .905 SV%. Now, the team was decimated by injuries each season and porous defensively, so the numbers don’t tell the whole story. You would expect him to be better on a team with some defensive structure and a lineup that has NHL players from top to bottom.

But did anyone expect him to be this good early on?

Allen has a 2.72 GAA with a .927 SV% in five games to begin the year. The team is 3-1-1 in games Allen plays and that is while he faces an average of 38.4 shots per game. He is getting absolutely peppered with shots but continues to turn them away and allow the Habs to collect 7 of ten points in his games.

Who knows how long he can keep this up but so far, Allen has been incredible for the Canadiens.

Tanner Pearson

Tanner Pearson was acquired as a cap dump from the Vancouver Canucks. He went through a brutal 2022-23 season due to injuries and it was further complicated by the fact the team did a poor job diagnosing and repairing his hand injury.

His hand was broken early last season and then infected during his recovery as they thought it would only be a couple weeks before he returned but he never did. By the end of the season Pearson commented he just hoped he could play with kids normally at some point. It seemed like his career may have been finished.

Then, over the summer he recovered and was ready to go by the time training camp began. This put the Canucks over the salary cap limit and they had to find a player to move. The Canadiens ended up taking on Pearson, and the final year of his contract which has a $3.25 million along with a third round pick for Casey DeSmith.

Expectations were pretty low for Pearson as he only played 14 games and had just one goal and five points last season before his injuries. After several surgeries and a long road to recovery, only to be cleared on the eve of the season, it would have been reasonable to expect a slow start for Pearson.

However, he has been great to begin his first season in Montreal. He has played on a veteran third line with Sean Monahan and Brendan Gallagher, and seems to have dialled the clock back a few years. He has scored three goals and six points in 11 games which puts him sixth on the team in points.

Not only that, but he has been killing penalties and creating scoring chances while shorthanded. The 31 year old is not at all a step behind out there and doesn’t look rusty at all after barely playing last season.

No one would have predicted a hot start for Pearson this season but he looks incredible right now.

Sean Monahan

Speaking of a veteran third line player that is playing well above expectations, let’s talk about Sean Monahan.

The 29 year old center was dealt to the Canadiens along with a first round pick a year ago. That freed up nearly $6.5 million on their salary cap last season which the Canadiens were happy to eat for a future first round pick.

Monahan had dealt with plenty of injuries and struggled offensively in his final couple of seasons in Calgary. He had just eight goals and 23 points in 65 games in his final season with the Flames. He also ended his season early as he needed surgery yet again which was becoming an annual tradition for him.

He played well for the Canadiens last season, scoring six goals and 17 points in 25 games before once again requiring season ending surgery.

This season, Monahan has looked like the best version of himself yet. Not just since he arrived in Montreal, but in his whole career. He has already scored six goals, matching last year’s output and has ten points in 11 games.

He is a fixture on the top power play unit in front of the net where his excellent hands and smarts allow him to get open, get the goalie moving, and put pucks in the net. He is also killing penalties regularly and has created some scoring opportunities with his excellent hockey sense. Monahan has also won over 60% of his faceoffs which is by far the highest of his career.

It is a little early in the season to start talking about what players are on pace for, but Monahan has been scoring like a 45 goal and 75 point player so far this season. He was good last season, but then injuries got the best of him yet again.

This season, he has been exceptional in all facets of the game. We would have expected him to be good, like he was last season, but no one would have guessed he would start the season by playing the best hockey of his entire career.

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