3 mistakes the Montreal Canadiens and Kent Hughes cannot make this offseason
The Montreal Canadiens must move into the next phase of their rebuilding project, and the margin of error is shrinking for general manager Kent Hughes.
We are heading into the third full season of the Montreal Canadiens rebuild, and now is the time for general manager Kent Hughes to start seeing his team grow not necessarily into contenders just yet, but a team that will entice many to believe is on the “up-and-up.”
Hey, contention would be a bonus, but getting the best of teams like the Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Florida Panthers won’t be the simplest of tasks. There is a good chance Montreal jumps the Ottawa Senators, and perhaps the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning finally backslide, but the latter two probably won’t be enough of a regression for the Habs to realistically get the best of them just yet.
However, the good news is this: They don’t need an outstanding finish in the Atlantic Division just yet. Hughes must keep making this organization better than they were the year before, and eventually, the playoffs will come around.
Kent Hughes must keep the Canadiens moving forward in the 2024 offseason
It won’t be acceptable if Hughes and the Canadiens take the dreaded “step back.” Through his first two seasons with the Habs, that hasn’t been an issue, and Hughes helped this team improve from 68 points in 2022-23 to 76 this season. If he allows the Habs to get to around 85 points in that third year of building for 2024-25, the following year (2025-26) should be fun for Montreal if he does everything correctly.
So, what kind of pitfalls could stagnate the Habs in what has so far been a systemic rebuild? In the following slides, we outlined three major mistakes he must avoid to keep this organization’s road to success on the smoothest possible path, both for 2024-25 but also into the latter half of the decade.
Making an irrational acquisition or two in free agency
There isn’t much projected cap space, and for 2024-25, Habs fans should rejoice. One reason is that the less cap space there is this season, the less temptation there will be for Kent Hughes to make any irrational signing that could get in the way of some high-end prospects.
That doesn’t mean Hughes won’t fill the bottom part of the lineup with cost-effective names, and it’s a route he should take if there is a vacancy. But he shouldn’t sign such players any longer than a year or two. And they must also be easily movable should he figure to sell again throughout the season and at the 2025 trade deadline.
In another stroke of luck, the Canadiens also won’t have many vacant spots in the lineup this summer, allowing for increased stability. That said, the only real way Hughes would even remotely come close to making such a mistake is if he got impatient and brought in someone still well entrenched in their prime while moving others out of Quebec.
This would be a waste of money as the Canadiens aren’t in a place to bring in dynamic talent from the outside. Doing so probably wouldn’t put the Habs past the 85-point threshold to begin with, so why bother?
Failing to draft the ‘best on the board’ this summer, regardless of round
For 2024, the Canadiens will end up with a high draft pick. We just don’t know when Hughes will be selecting. Regardless I stressed in an earlier piece that he must make a wise choice, and one that is both a safe and high-potential selection.
It can sometimes be tempting to roll with a risky but high-potential prospect, but that shouldn’t be the case this June, with so much room for growth in the Habs prospects pool. One way to best ensure the newest and youngest member of the Canadiens organization will perform as advertised is to roll with the tried and true “best on the board” mentality.
Suppose Montreal doesn’t land in the top-four, but they also don’t fall out of the fifth spot; there is a 100 percent chance they end up with a safe pick. Even if they fell out of the top-five, the 2024 class is still rich with surefire NHLers, and Hughes wouldn’t need to overthink if he plans on drafting a player with a high probability they will make the Canadiens better.
While taking a high-risk, high-reward prospect wouldn’t be a dealbreaker, Hughes isn’t in a position to take anyone with “draft bust potential” this season. Later in the rebuild, or best yet, when the Habs become a mid-tier organization again, then he can have some leeway. The strategy also shouldn’t apply only to the first round, but for every pick Hughes has this season.
Retaining unrestricted free agents who won’t be in town when the team starts winning
As mentioned earlier, there won’t be many players leaving Quebec as unrestricted free agents should Kent Hughes keep the team largely intact. There are others who shouldn’t return next season that aren’t pending UFAs, but if Hughes keeps everyone on board who isn’t slated to walk in free agency, it won’t spell disaster.
Players like David Savard and Joel Armia would still be helpful in this team’s quest to keep rising in the NHL ranks, so they would have value even if it makes more sense to move them.
However, it would make no sense to bring back a pair of pending unrestricted free agents like Colin White and Tanner Pearson. Doing so would result in the same thing as signing a free agent to a rather lucrative deal - if Hughes would find room for it. Upcoming prospects simply cannot be blocked, especially with players who proved to be more ineffective this past season.
It’s understandable if Hughes isn’t able to find a suitor for players with another year or two left on their respective deals this summer, since there is an entire NHL season to play along with next year’s trade deadline. Hughes doesn’t need to rush anything, but if he can make room for a few more youngsters to earn a spot on the big club, it’s a route he must take.
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(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)