For me it depends on how our young guns are doing. If we somehow have a bottom 5 season with all of our guys growing then I’m down, but if it means they all have a terrible year riddled with injuries then It wouldn’t be worth it imo.
propagandavid
The team has to progress. Another bottom 5 finish would feel like a failure, even if that failure comes with a good draft pick.
ValexHD
Bottom 5 pick with career-high production from everybody.
That’s how it works, right?
bathbwoi
Bottom 5 again this year to get a stab at a high end scorer since we missed out on one this year and went for a D.
If we would have done Nemec instead of Slaf and either michkov, Leonard or benson instead of Reinbacher I’d say I’d be happy finishing top 10 this year.
mackinwas
Place 21st in the league and win the lottery
cgtdream2
Best case scenario is that A) all of the rookies take a step forward in their development, and B) the habs finish with a top 5 draft pick.
If we can’t have both, I’d rather see the rookies continue to develop and suffer a mid pick, especially given the calibre of the upcoming free agent class.
SufficientNet9227
1 more year in the bottom and we will be good imo.
facepollution5
enough bottom feeding. This is the Montreal Canadiens, not the Ottawa Senators.
ukrainianhab
Thing is people be like “this will be an eight year process” (excessive af) and then don’t select 2
mdlt97
Bottom 5 every time
We don’t have the high end talent we need to win yet
Eazy3006
Bottom 5 for sure. If we’re trying to build a cup contenter, we need elite talent in our forward group.
If we’re trying to build a “get in the playoffs and anything can happen” team then it doesn’t matter, our core group can get us there in a year or 2.
Bohmer
I don’t care where we finish, I just want to see clear progression on our core players.
Thaddeauz
Depend on the situation. If we end 10th in the conference because veteran like Allen, Desmith, Monahan, Gallagher, Anderson, Dvorak, Armia, Savard and Matheson have a crazy season and/or a guy like Caufield have a career season of 60 goals with a 20%+ shooting percentage. Or if it’s because several of the teams below us were plague with injuries all season, then no.
If we end up 10th in the conference because the majority of our core guys (Suzuki, Caufield, Dach, Guhle, etc) have a great progression and 1 or 2 unexpected prospect having a breakthrough season, then yes I would be fine with it.
darcytisgreat
This season is more about the journey than the result. We need to see progress from our young core. If we see that happening but bad breaks, a string of injuries or bad goaltending, etc. cause another bottom 5 finish: that, to me, would be the ideal end.
A bottom five finish is not worth it if we achieve it because all of the young players we think are set to take steps forward end up moving backwards or in other ways fail to perform.
Likewise, if we finish just outside of the playoffs but it’s driven right to the end of the season by a first line run by Monahan with Armia and Gallagher on his flanks along with an over-performing Jake Allen (not saying this is likely, just for an example), I would say that is also a failure.
habs9
You have to hope your young players take a big step and really progress because if they don’t, the rebuild is doomed anyways and adding even more draft capital on top of our already deep (getting too crowded) pool will never be enough. So out of these options I would prefer the progress. That being said we do need a 1A forward still IMO so if we had more injury trouble, etc. and we ended up with another high draft pick it is what it is. Contrary to some belief it is actually possible to trade for or sign this player and sometimes it actually isn’t even that hard (Stone, Eichel, ROR, etc. Your timing has to be right though.
But at this point there is very little still remaining on the team that isn’t here on purpose, so failure would be a very bad sign of things to come. Bottoming out when your team is filled with overpaid, bloated, Bergevin signings is totally fine, but most of them are gone at this point. We need to see a step from our young guys or we risk entering “perpetual rebuild” territory.
Vingt-Quatre
Bottom 5 in the league. I’m not gonna be happy with this rebuild until the Habs draft a true elite forward or two.
JourneyToArcana
I guess the one thing I come back to is that the team finished 4th from last, won a lotto, and picked KK. The next year, they finished one point out of the playoffs, and picked Caufield. It’s obviously easier to get top talent in the top 5 but the truly elite talent, especially forward talent, seems to be 1-2-3 next year (Celebrini, Eiserman, Demidov). Who knows if Demidov falls again, or if this team would go for him? So if we’re picking 5th-7th but not showing progress, and getting a guy who’s not projected to be a gamebreaker, I don’t know if that’s better than finishing in a bubble position and showing real growth. My concern is the team ending up in the mushy middle like Ottawa and Detroit forever.
Mangoes95
I’d rather tank for another 2 seasons than be the Minnesota Wild of 5 years ago: always a middling team that’s too good for a lottery chance and too bad for the playoffs
Sharks9
Bottom 5. Without more elite talent all we’re building is a team that will perpetually fight for a wildcard spot at best
ColeFleur
Best Case. Everyone shows progress and Habs barely miss playoffs. Then win the lottery and move up to 5/6? whatever the rules allow.
SourForward
I’m going bottom 5. I know you need to start progressing at some point, but we still don’t have that game breaking forward that we’ve needed for years. Without that I don’t like our chances at becoming contenders, and until we get it, I pick tank.
Studly_Wonderballs
I want all our young players to be better than last year and I don’t care where we place
Hinya
Progress is more important for me. There’s doubts about our forward core missing that star piece, which would warrant a need for another top 5 pick. That’s fair, but the hopeless optimist that I am believes that if we end higher in the standings, it might be because our forward group and defense is much more capable than initially thought.
ScareCrow13-
More top picks would be good but still i never wish the team to lose.
CarlSK777
I’d never cheer for the team to finish in the worst spot possible: not good enough for playoffs but not bad enough for a top draft picks.
If the Habs had the new core in place I could live with it but I don’t think there’s enough talent in the core so a high draft pick is needed. Assuming the goal is to build a great team and not just a decent one.
KingAlphie
Bottom 5 lottery win this year and then 1st overall the next year with Calgary’s pick. Eiserman and Misa come on down.
Gabroux
Another bottom 5 finish. They still lack talent upfront, specially at center.
They need a top C so Suzuki can play 2nd line.
Available-Show-2393
I genuinely do not care about standings next year. The Last 2 years? Sure. All I wanted was a high draft pick. Moving forward? Time for the team to have a good healthy year with solid progression. It’s not gonna be playoffs, with everyone so young and a strong Atlantic, but if the players are making strides towards their ceiling, that will do a lot more to making us a contender in the future than another 5OA player vs a 14 OA.
Key-Surprise-9206
I want to lose every game by one goal and win every game with a shutout and 5+ goals pls
G_skins31
How can anyone call them selves a habs fan and say they would rather another 7 months of garbage before the season even starts.
I’d much rather see some wins right now
KlutzyQuantity4150
If we are bottom 5 that means our young kids regressed, that would be a disaster.
Ideal is just missing the playoffs and playing meaningful games late season rn.
PhillipThePlatypus
10th in conference but win the lottery for a top 5 pick 
Go_Cart_Mozart
All of you picking top 5 draft pick need to turn in your sweaters and have your heads examined, IMHO.
private_liberty
I want a progression… There’s no point to have a loser culture team like Buffalo & Edmonton had for years…
EmTeeEl
Whatever it means regarding our young F and young D progressing. If they have a great season, but we finish bottom because Armia, Dvorak etc are not having a good season, and that goaltending is not good, then so be it.
Having that said, we barely made the bottom 5 WITH all injuries, so with a normal “injury” season, I would be surprised we finish this low. Goaltending would have to be really bad.
lyme6483
Need progression, bottom 5 would be a ton of injuries again/ the young guys not progressing.
LongPole2GoalCole
I’m just going have low expectations and see what happens. There’s a part of me that feels like if Monty looks comfortable and polished and the young players are deadly that the talk will be that the Habs are going to be no joke dangerous in the very near future at the end of the season.
mattnormus
Playoff time
WintertimeLivingEasy
Tank until we can have more than two top 6 players.
yellow_edge
Drafting isn’t the only way to build a contender.
Im_Sorry_93
Id really like the later to have a chance to draft Ivan Demigod, but I dont see that happening. There are way worse team than us imo.
Meats_Hurricane
We finish better than 2 of Buffalo, Detroit, Ottawa
Boston, Tampa Bay and Toronto start to decline pushing a couple of them to start the rebuild process.
After a good season we just miss the playoffs and draft top 5 after some lottery luck.
42 Comments
For me it depends on how our young guns are doing. If we somehow have a bottom 5 season with all of our guys growing then I’m down, but if it means they all have a terrible year riddled with injuries then It wouldn’t be worth it imo.
The team has to progress. Another bottom 5 finish would feel like a failure, even if that failure comes with a good draft pick.
Bottom 5 pick with career-high production from everybody.
That’s how it works, right?
Bottom 5 again this year to get a stab at a high end scorer since we missed out on one this year and went for a D.
If we would have done Nemec instead of Slaf and either michkov, Leonard or benson instead of Reinbacher I’d say I’d be happy finishing top 10 this year.
Place 21st in the league and win the lottery
Best case scenario is that A) all of the rookies take a step forward in their development, and B) the habs finish with a top 5 draft pick.
If we can’t have both, I’d rather see the rookies continue to develop and suffer a mid pick, especially given the calibre of the upcoming free agent class.
1 more year in the bottom and we will be good imo.
enough bottom feeding. This is the Montreal Canadiens, not the Ottawa Senators.
Thing is people be like “this will be an eight year process” (excessive af) and then don’t select 2
Bottom 5 every time
We don’t have the high end talent we need to win yet
Bottom 5 for sure. If we’re trying to build a cup contenter, we need elite talent in our forward group.
If we’re trying to build a “get in the playoffs and anything can happen” team then it doesn’t matter, our core group can get us there in a year or 2.
I don’t care where we finish, I just want to see clear progression on our core players.
Depend on the situation. If we end 10th in the conference because veteran like Allen, Desmith, Monahan, Gallagher, Anderson, Dvorak, Armia, Savard and Matheson have a crazy season and/or a guy like Caufield have a career season of 60 goals with a 20%+ shooting percentage. Or if it’s because several of the teams below us were plague with injuries all season, then no.
If we end up 10th in the conference because the majority of our core guys (Suzuki, Caufield, Dach, Guhle, etc) have a great progression and 1 or 2 unexpected prospect having a breakthrough season, then yes I would be fine with it.
This season is more about the journey than the result. We need to see progress from our young core. If we see that happening but bad breaks, a string of injuries or bad goaltending, etc. cause another bottom 5 finish: that, to me, would be the ideal end.
A bottom five finish is not worth it if we achieve it because all of the young players we think are set to take steps forward end up moving backwards or in other ways fail to perform.
Likewise, if we finish just outside of the playoffs but it’s driven right to the end of the season by a first line run by Monahan with Armia and Gallagher on his flanks along with an over-performing Jake Allen (not saying this is likely, just for an example), I would say that is also a failure.
You have to hope your young players take a big step and really progress because if they don’t, the rebuild is doomed anyways and adding even more draft capital on top of our already deep (getting too crowded) pool will never be enough. So out of these options I would prefer the progress. That being said we do need a 1A forward still IMO so if we had more injury trouble, etc. and we ended up with another high draft pick it is what it is. Contrary to some belief it is actually possible to trade for or sign this player and sometimes it actually isn’t even that hard (Stone, Eichel, ROR, etc. Your timing has to be right though.
But at this point there is very little still remaining on the team that isn’t here on purpose, so failure would be a very bad sign of things to come. Bottoming out when your team is filled with overpaid, bloated, Bergevin signings is totally fine, but most of them are gone at this point. We need to see a step from our young guys or we risk entering “perpetual rebuild” territory.
Bottom 5 in the league. I’m not gonna be happy with this rebuild until the Habs draft a true elite forward or two.
I guess the one thing I come back to is that the team finished 4th from last, won a lotto, and picked KK. The next year, they finished one point out of the playoffs, and picked Caufield. It’s obviously easier to get top talent in the top 5 but the truly elite talent, especially forward talent, seems to be 1-2-3 next year (Celebrini, Eiserman, Demidov). Who knows if Demidov falls again, or if this team would go for him? So if we’re picking 5th-7th but not showing progress, and getting a guy who’s not projected to be a gamebreaker, I don’t know if that’s better than finishing in a bubble position and showing real growth. My concern is the team ending up in the mushy middle like Ottawa and Detroit forever.
I’d rather tank for another 2 seasons than be the Minnesota Wild of 5 years ago: always a middling team that’s too good for a lottery chance and too bad for the playoffs
Bottom 5. Without more elite talent all we’re building is a team that will perpetually fight for a wildcard spot at best
Best Case. Everyone shows progress and Habs barely miss playoffs. Then win the lottery and move up to 5/6? whatever the rules allow.
I’m going bottom 5. I know you need to start progressing at some point, but we still don’t have that game breaking forward that we’ve needed for years. Without that I don’t like our chances at becoming contenders, and until we get it, I pick tank.
I want all our young players to be better than last year and I don’t care where we place
Progress is more important for me. There’s doubts about our forward core missing that star piece, which would warrant a need for another top 5 pick. That’s fair, but the hopeless optimist that I am believes that if we end higher in the standings, it might be because our forward group and defense is much more capable than initially thought.
More top picks would be good but still i never wish the team to lose.
I’d never cheer for the team to finish in the worst spot possible: not good enough for playoffs but not bad enough for a top draft picks.
If the Habs had the new core in place I could live with it but I don’t think there’s enough talent in the core so a high draft pick is needed. Assuming the goal is to build a great team and not just a decent one.
Bottom 5 lottery win this year and then 1st overall the next year with Calgary’s pick. Eiserman and Misa come on down.
Another bottom 5 finish. They still lack talent upfront, specially at center.
They need a top C so Suzuki can play 2nd line.
I genuinely do not care about standings next year. The Last 2 years? Sure. All I wanted was a high draft pick. Moving forward? Time for the team to have a good healthy year with solid progression. It’s not gonna be playoffs, with everyone so young and a strong Atlantic, but if the players are making strides towards their ceiling, that will do a lot more to making us a contender in the future than another 5OA player vs a 14 OA.
I want to lose every game by one goal and win every game with a shutout and 5+ goals pls
How can anyone call them selves a habs fan and say they would rather another 7 months of garbage before the season even starts.
I’d much rather see some wins right now
If we are bottom 5 that means our young kids regressed, that would be a disaster.
Ideal is just missing the playoffs and playing meaningful games late season rn.
10th in conference but win the lottery for a top 5 pick 
All of you picking top 5 draft pick need to turn in your sweaters and have your heads examined, IMHO.
I want a progression… There’s no point to have a loser culture team like Buffalo & Edmonton had for years…
Whatever it means regarding our young F and young D progressing. If they have a great season, but we finish bottom because Armia, Dvorak etc are not having a good season, and that goaltending is not good, then so be it.
Having that said, we barely made the bottom 5 WITH all injuries, so with a normal “injury” season, I would be surprised we finish this low. Goaltending would have to be really bad.
Need progression, bottom 5 would be a ton of injuries again/ the young guys not progressing.
I’m just going have low expectations and see what happens. There’s a part of me that feels like if Monty looks comfortable and polished and the young players are deadly that the talk will be that the Habs are going to be no joke dangerous in the very near future at the end of the season.
Playoff time
Tank until we can have more than two top 6 players.
Drafting isn’t the only way to build a contender.
Id really like the later to have a chance to draft Ivan Demigod, but I dont see that happening. There are way worse team than us imo.
We finish better than 2 of Buffalo, Detroit, Ottawa
Boston, Tampa Bay and Toronto start to decline pushing a couple of them to start the rebuild process.
After a good season we just miss the playoffs and draft top 5 after some lottery luck.