With a wealth of picks, and young players like Juraj Slafkovsky, Kaiden Guhle and Samuel Montembeault proving they are good NHL players, is the time now for the Habs to shift their focus from rebuilding to winning? Mike Johnson and Craig Button discuss.
@Montreal Canadiens
38 Comments
Tank this year – Win next year. Last year to rebuild
2026/2027 very simple
Immediately. Don't ruin the stud farm with perpetual losing.
If the Habs can land Celebrini or Cayden Lindstrom I think they’ll be ready to compete by 2025-2026. Their top 4 D pairing will be Guhle, Reinbacher, Hutson and Mailloux who all have great upside and their top 6 with Suzuki and Celebrini/Lindstrom up the middle with a matured Slafkovsky and hopefully Kirby Dach getting over his injuries has the potential to be unreal in 2 years. The only area of question is goaltending but they’ve got some promising prospects. They just have to get rid of the bad contracts somehow (Gallagher/Anderson etc)
Lane hutson should be 1st, this kid gonna be a star!
We need to let some of your prospects like Hutson and others like beck and Roy and not to forget Fowler developed and not rush them
Montreal won a league record 24 Stanley Cups already meaning they don't need to win anymore as no one will be able to match or surpass Montreal's NHL record of 24 Stanley Cups won.
Habs fans are greedy as winning an NHL record 24 Cups isn't enough for them as they always want more.
Habs should trade for McDavid.
Hughes has been open about 2025-26 being the season where he wants the team to start competing…
I agree, I think Montreal next year can compete for a wild card spot. The team took big strides this year, unfortunately, players like Dach and Newhook have missed time, but I believe another year under their belt and continuing to learn how to win in this league has been super beneficial to the team's overall development and I think they are on the right path. What is hurting the team is their cap, they have players who don't play up to their contract and are quiet frankly pulling the team down
Ok, Craig is smoking some goodie goods again. Craig only speaks for hab fans that don’t have patience🥵
Defense and goaltending are too inconsistent. Too many games lost to injury, which affects the consistency.
They need a solid 1A goalie (Monty and Primeau are 1B at best). They have young talent still in the AHL and NCAA and need 2 – 3 years in the NHL to develop. The current #1 line will have 3 – 4 years of playing together at the point when all of the other pieces will be ready AND they will be rid of the putrid Bergevin contracts that will allow them to sign 2 or 3 key free agents to fill key gaps and get them into the conference finals for a 4 – 5 year stretch.
Most important immediate acquisition is a training staff to keep them fit and healthy otherwise they will never contend.
Please do not get Zegras. Kid is all flashing showboat goals and no skill to actually help win
Get a real goalie first
They’re still 3 years away
The answer is a simple one…focus on winning NEXT year, after this springs draft.
100% habs make the playoff next year
Not having lane Hutson as the top ranked prospect for the Canadians is crazy to me
As a long time fan of the Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, who by the way thought that they should have been in a rebuild mode as far back as the 1990s, this season is going like I expected. Within reach of the playoffs for part of this season, but fading in February. It started happening late in January . They should use the rest of this season to improve defensively, and have at least the resemblance of secondary scoring line. Losing Dach as early as they lost sure put a monkey wrench inyo things.
They have a host of players they need to get rid of, bring up the young players they want on the team long term, and pick up some scorers either by trade or free agency like perhaps a Sam Reinhart. Either way the holding on to guys to get the best deal situation is getting old and I agree the time is now to start splashing around in the pool.
I think 1 more years, it's in this time when the temptation is great you could miss a reconstruction. Don't forget dach will be back new year
Trade for Byfield and rebuild over. 1stSuzuki Caulfield slafkovsky 2nd Dach Byfield Newhook 3rd Beck Roy Anderson 4th Dvorak Evens Florian rebuild over start having fun.. trade Mesar Harris wpg 1st allian1/2 this year for Byfield
Might be a question in coaching.
We can't make a lot of progress signing new players until we can get rid of our bad contracts. Gally, Anderson, and Armia. We have 16 million tied up in these 3 low return contracts. Hughes doesn't like to give players away for zero but he should with these players. We cannot bring up prospects, or sign some high-end talent, until these players are off the books. I would love to see Hughes and Gorton solve this problem asap, even though it will be hard to do.
26/27 last year of gallaghers contract
After all, we are le Canadiens de Montréal, the best and most presitigious franchise in the sport. Every other fanbase = kneel.
Habs need a vet like a better version of Monahan that can bang good at faceoffs that could move anywhere in the line up guy like Trocheck and let the kids do the scoring. Fill the team with grinders and power fowards and rely on young prospect to score
Zegras and one of demidov/lindstrom or catton and we chilling
Go habs go
Roy ranked above Hutson is insane
Next year, compete for playoffs. In 2 years, compete for Division/Conference. In 3 years, compete for the cup for at least 3 years. You don't want your players to all reach free agency at the same time. You CAN compete for a Stanley Cup with a couple of sophomores and rookies. Maybe, displace plan for one year, but you surely need to stop tanking as soon as next year, I hope.
Montreal has to trade for a guy like Draisaitl/Pettersson. I see at top 6 of: Suzuki,Caufield,Slaf, Celebrini,( Montreal has the assets to move up), Drisaitl/Pettersson, Dach/Newhook. That’s deadly. But for now, let’s hope that Fowler turns out to be our #1 goalie. With Monty the backup.
They need another year of tanking in 24-25. Then start moving toward the playoffs.
2047
The Habs need to put together an effective 2nd line but even more importantly they have to fix their defensive structure.
Mesar IQ can can revive the defense
You guys should ask the same questions about those pathetic Ottawa senators Hot 🔥 Garbage