When will the Montreal Canadiens return to the playoffs?
The Montreal Canadiens went from 2020-21 Stanley Cup finalist to last overall and winning the NHL draft lottery in 2021-22. It was quite the fall, arguably the worst season in franchise history. Yet interim coach Martin St. Louis brought a silver lining, making the team more competitive during the stretch run and unlocking Cole Caufield’s scoring potential.
With the Habs announcing this week that they’d removed St. Louis’ interim tag and handed him a three-year contract extension, it’s time to forecast the team’s return to the playoffs. How long will it take?
OK, Daily Faceoff Roundtable: “The Canadiens will return to the playoffs in ____.”
MATT LARKIN: I’m thinking 2024-25. It’s going to take a while for the Atlantic Division to turn over. The Florida Panthers, Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning remain squarely in their contention windows, while the Buffalo Sabres showed signs of improvement this past season, and the Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators have assembled such deep prospect crops that they’re in position to start spending more aggressively on veteran support pieces in the next season or two. The Boston Bruins are arguably the only team in the division whose arrow is trending down in the long-term right now. As for the Habs: Shane Wright or not, it’s going to take a while to develop this roster. The likes of Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield are legitimate building blocks, but the Habs also have a lot of veteran contracts taking on water, while it remains to be seen if goaltender Carey Price can ever handle a full NHL workload again. So I’m not expecting a major playoff push for a few seasons.
CHRIS GEAR: Getting the Canadiens back to the playoffs is going to take time. I’m thinking at least five years, so 2026-27. We’ve just seen the Rangers turn their fortunes around within a four-year window, but a lot of that had to with a world-class goalie on his way up in Igor Shesterkin. The Habs’ own world-class goalie, Carey Price, is probably on the other side of his best years if he can even return to full duty, so I think it’s going to be a longer growth period before the Habs are legitimately in the mix. The current playoff teams in the Eastern Conference are just too strong, and they aren’t going to falter any time soon. And as Matt mentioned, teams like Buffalo, Ottawa and Detroit are a few years ahead of Montreal on the development curve. You can be a very good, 90- to 95-point team and not qualify in this league, and the Habs are a long way from that at this stage. They do have a ton of draft capital and some good young pieces, and I like the decision to bring in Kent Hughes as GM, as he strikes me as smart and measured. With some great picks and crafty trades, they could absolutely get back in the playoff conversation sooner, but that shouldn’t be the goal or expectation. The fan base and ownership in Montreal may not be patient enough to stay the course in the rebuild. I could see them adding pieces too early and making the playoffs ahead of schedule, only to falter again in later years. Trust the process for long-term success.
MIKE MCKENNA: This is exactly the type of question I don’t enjoy answering, because my answer isn’t any fun. I don’t have a lot of optimism for the Canadiens in the next few years, and I think it will be 2025-26 before the Canadiens are truly contending for a playoff spot again. Of course things can change if Canadiens GM Kent Hughes manages to pull a rabbit out of his hat in terms of cap management, but that would take some serious horse trading. Laval is currently in the quarterfinal of the AHL’s Calder Cup playoffs, but the top eight scorers are all over the age of 25. In other words, the prospects aren’t leading the charge. If the Canadiens had more in their system to be excited about, I’d probably have a different outlook. Thankfully Hughes has boatload of draft picks this year, including 10 in the first four rounds. But it’s going to take easily three or four seasons before Montreal sees the benefit of those draft picks in the form of mature NHL players. Even if the Canadiens take a center first overall – be it Shane Wright or Logan Cooley – I don’t see that player walking into the Bell Centre at 18 years old and starring as a second-line center. Montreal needs everything from the net out. The Habs will need to draft well in the coming years.
SCOTT BURNSIDE: Matt hates it when I do this but instead of actually answering the question I’ll modify it and ask my own. Not that Matt’s question wasn’t a fine one. It was. But as my esteemed colleagues pointed out, it’s a little bit like asking when I might get my next hole in one. Oh, it’ll happen. Maybe. Just not likely for a long time. That’s Montreal’s climb back to the actual playoffs. But what about this: when will Montreal next play meaningful games into the final third of a season? Or put another way, when will Montreal actually have to consider whether they’re buyers or sellers at the deadline? That’s a good barometer of a team’s evolution and I think that could happen by the ’24 deadline. I think Martin St. Louis is that kind of coach. He’s going to get a lot out of a little which is what the Habs are going to have for the next three or four seasons, but – and so much of this depends on Carey Price’s availability and his health, so a little caveat there – I think the Habs get themselves in the mix sooner than people think because St. Louis is already on his way to changing the culture and the approach to the on-ice product in Montreal. Management is going to be in lockstep with how he wants to play and they’re going to give him players to do just that.
FRANK SERAVALLI: Scott, I’ll bet you my house that the Canadiens make the playoffs before you get your next hole-in-one. I am going to take a little more optimistic route for the Montreal Canadiens. I will say that the Habs are knocking on the door of the Stanley Cup playoffs in the 2023-24 season. My reason for optimism is the blueprint that Jeff Gorton left with the New York Rangers, tangible proof of where this is heading. That letter to Blueshirts season ticket-holders initiating the Broadway rebirth was sent on Feb. 8, 2018. Two seasons later, they were a 93-point team (over a full 82-game season). Four seasons later, New York is in the conference final. So, why do I think the Canadiens can get there in two seasons? They’re further along now than the Rangers were then. Consider this: only two players remain from the 2017-18 Rangers – Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider. Two important pieces, of course, but the Rangers did most of their work through the draft. The Canadiens have a foundational piece in Nick Suzuki, who I think can get to the level of Kreider/Zibanejad, and they’ve already had the lottery luck that helped the Rangers. Shane Wright can form an incredible one-two punch down the middle with Suzuki. The Canadiens have four first-round picks over the next two drafts and 10 of the first 128 picks this year. Watch how quickly Gorton and Kent Hughes turn over this roster.
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