Ranking the Canadiens forwards from worst to first for the 2024-25 season
The Canadiens forwards look stronger than ever heading into the 2024-25 season, but who is the best of the entire group?
The Montreal Canadiens boast an encouraging group of forwards, and it’s something I uncovered in the top half of these rankings, or at least that will be the case if a couple of players rediscover their respective games. If they do, it’s not that the Canadiens will have one of the NHL’s better top-sixes out there, but it will be the best this organization has seen in a while.
That said, I have concerns about their bottom-six, but if there’s one important thing to remember about these rankings, I only included players Hockey-Reference currently has projected to join the main lineup. So you won’t see anyone in the prospect pool who could rise up with a strong preseason and find a spot with the Habs big club.
So, who aced the No. 1 spot, and who are some of the other top forwards heading into 2024-25? Let’s talk about them and what their 2024-25 season may look like.
12 - Alex Barre-Boulet
Alex Barre-Boulet will be the odd man out among Canadiens forwards if one of the top prospects ends up making the big club out of training camp. Not that Barre-Boulet wouldn’t be part of the team, but he would instead factor in as the 13th forward who would see about 35-40 games if the Canadiens stayed healthy.
11 - Rafael Harvey-Pinard
Rafael Harvey-Pinard will take another fourth-line role this season following a year in which he put up just 10 points and two goals in 45 games. He looked sensational when the Canadiens didn’t have the puck, with 47 blocks and 47 hits, plus an on-ice save percentage of 92.6 at even strength.
10 - Michael Pezzetta
Michael Pezzetta has proven to be a hard-hitting lower-liner capable of playing between 51 and 63 games per year, but with the potential for more. While he’s averaged under 10 minutes per game of average total ice time, Pezzetta adds an intimidation factor that will make him a headache to play against.
9 - Joel Armia
Joel Armia is one player on this list who may not see the end of the season with the Habs if a contender wants a decent depth scorer. Armia scored 17 times last year and posted a respectable 12.2 shooting percentage. He should exclusively play on the middle-six this season and again put up between 25 and 30 points if he sticks around all year.
8 - Christian Dvorak
Christian Dvorak and Joel Armia could have tied here, but the former has more upside, even amidst playing in just 30 games last season. Anyway, he’s one of the Habs most dependable players in the faceoff dot, and there’s a good chance he would have bested his previous career-high in scoring had he been healthy all season.
7 - Josh Anderson
Right now, I’m chalking Josh Anderson’s pedestrian 2023-24 season up as a bad outing and will reserve judgment until what he looks like in 2024-25. The physical forward looked like a surefire top-six player heading into last season before he ended the year with just 20 points in 78 games.
6 - Jake Evans
Jake Evans played in all 82 games for the first time in his career last season, and while he put up just 28 points in 82 games, his competitive play and reliability in winning faceoffs puts him at No. 6 in the first edition of these rankings. Another magic number is that 43.2 Corsi For percentage at even strength, which doesn’t seem like a lot until you realize 67.9 percent of his starts came in the defensive zone.
5 - Brendan Gallagher
While Brendan Gallagher may not see as much ice time as some of those listed below him, he’s still one of the Habs more reliable scorers when healthy. In 77 games, he scored 16 goals, and that’s a number that can increase as the Canadiens boast a much-improved unit this season.
4 - Alex Newhook
There isn’t a forward on the Canadiens I’m more excited about than Alex Newhook, who set a career-high in points despite appearing in just 55 contests. If Newhook even gets close to 82 games and keeps up that level of play, he’s a 20-goal scorer with at least 50 points, if not more.
3 - Juraj Slafkovsky
Juraj Slafkovsky’s play earned him a lucrative contract extension following a 50-point, 20-goal breakout year. But he should shatter those numbers in 2024-25 as he enters the final season of his entry-level deal, and he will complete an amazing trio that includes the top two players on this list.
2 - Cole Caufield
Health was my biggest concern regarding Cole Caufield entering the 2023-24 season, but he aced that test with an 82-game season that saw him put up 65 points and 28 goals. That was a career-high, but you can expect him to beat both of those numbers this season if he can see 82 games once more.
1 - Nick Suzuki
An incredible player on both ends of the ice and in all three zones, Nick Suzuki, has shown immense durability and productivity throughout his career, having appeared in 373 games over the past five seasons and racking up 286 points. This season, he will be a point-per-game player who should lead the Habs in scoring again.
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(Statistics powered by Hockey-Reference)