The Montreal Canadiens are heading into next season with a roster very similar to the team that lost to the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final in May. The two biggest departures from last year’s team are Brendan Gallagher, now with the Vancouver Canucks, and Joe Veleno, who signed with the New York Rangers in free agency. The core remains the same, with Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, and Lane Hutson leading the charge. The Canadiens have young players like Ivan Demidov, Oliver Kapanen, Jakub Dobes, and Jacob Fowler who they hope will take another step forward in their development. With the lack of offseason moves, training camp will be valuable for the Canadiens as they look to round out their roster, with some players having a lot to prove.
1. David Reinbacher
David Reinbacher is clearly the player in the Canadiens organization who has the most to prove during training camp. Reinbacher was the Canadiens' fifth overall pick in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft, and as it stands, 23 players selected in the first round of that same draft have played more games than the Austrian defenceman. He has dealt with injuries since signing his entry-level contract in 2023, but is coming off a relatively healthy season, playing 57 games. He was solid last season for the Laval Rocket, recording five goals and 19 assists in those games, and earned a call-up to the Canadiens late in the season when Noah Dobson went down with a thumb injury. Reinbacher performed well in his two games with the Canadiens, recording an assist while averaging just over 13 minutes a game. While that is all well and good, Montreal needs more from a player they spent the fifth overall pick on. He will need to prove in training camp that he is ready to make the jump to the NHL full-time, and show that he is a better option than Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj.
2. Oliver Kapanen
If you look at the numbers, any team would be ecstatic that their rookie centre scored 22 goals, but Oliver Kapanen’s situation is a little different. Kapanen’s game does not leap off the screen, but he was reliable in the defensive zone and had a knack for finding loose pucks around the net in the offensive zone. For the first half of the season, Kapanen was centring a line between Slafkovsky and Demidov, forming the Canadiens' more dependable offensive line as the team battled through injuries. However, after coming back from the Olympic break, he was a completely different player. Kapanen was held off the scoresheet for long stretches and finished the season without a point in his final 10 games. After being locked into the second-line centre role for much of the season, Kapanen spent most of the playoffs as a healthy scratch, appearing in just seven of the Canadiens’ 19 postseason games. Montreal did not add any help at centre this offseason, meaning it will be up to Kapanen to prove that it is still his position to lose. He will need to prove that he is better than what he showed in the second half of last season, and that starts in training camp.
3. Florian Xhekaj
From what we saw in the Canadiens’ series against the Hurricanes, the team needs to get grittier on offence. Florian Xhekaj can provide that. The younger Xhekaj was one of the last cuts from the roster last season, but with Gallagher now heading to Vancouver, there is an opening in the Canadiens' bottom six. While mainly utilized as a physical presence, leading the Rocket in penalty minutes over the last two seasons, Xhekaj has also shown he can chip in offensively. He set a franchise record for goals by a rookie in 2024-25 with 24, and followed that up by scoring 17 goals last season. Xhekaj showed last season, during a short stint with the Canadiens, that he did not look out of place, playing in five games and recording an assist while averaging just under 10 minutes a game. He fills a desperate need for the Canadiens, with their only real physical presence on offence being Josh Anderson, but he will not be the only player challenging for that position. He has fallen short in the past, but he will need to show in training camp that he has made the necessary adjustments.
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