which 11-16 teams do you think they are better than? this is absolutely a team finishing near the bottom

This team is almost the exact same team that finished dead last last year

They didn’t even take the best Slovak in the draft and they had the first pick!!!

Same GM. They will be fine. Dude turned Romanov into the 13th pick…. And then turned that pick into Kirby “Can’t finish” Dach.

forward core, at least in terms of depth, is actually very good. Other than that they are absolutely dreadful and will be a bottom 5 team

No it’s not. Gallagher washed, Anderson legitimately terrible, Dach has been awful, Drouin isn’t great, Hoffman horrible. Suzuki isn’t a real 1st line center yet either.

Defense and goaltending will sink them, but I'm still really looking forward to this season. Tons of players with something to prove.

Forwards are pretty mid. They really only have 3 top 6 caliber forwards

I'm not saying it's stellar, I just like the idea of bounce back players under a full season with a new coach and a less injured roster (Dvorak, Gallagher, Anderson, Armia, Drouin) + two "dumped" forwards playing for their next contracts (Dadonov, Monahan) + most importantly the progression of their young players and prospects.

I see them being in the 4-8 range probably

"With those forward, we are not a rebuild team."

Good thing you didn't base your opinion on the whole team but just fowards, because boy oh boy is that defense terrible and they lack a No 1 goalie. Bottom 5 for sure, even with a bad draft lottery.

#Tunelvision

IMO half of their forward corps is not part of the rebuild, so theyll remain sellers.

Only 6 of their current forward corps are young enough/good enough to be of use in 2-3 seasons, and defensively they probably have just 3 guys who will evolve in 2-3 seasons to be top 6.

Guys like savard, hoffman, gallagher, andersdon, armia, edmundson, drouin, byron, price, monahan, wideman, allen, dandanov don;t really have 2-3 good quality seasons left in MTL in one way or another. Thats 13 guys out of the 26 above that need to go, be moved, as the apex of their careers is over (long over for some), but the time MTL is able to find enough youth or FAs to build a good team. And theres really only 5 quality forwards and 3 quality dmen in the above that I'd keep out of the rest. Most of the top prospects are in the above, with a couple more in minors/juniors that might find a spot

And 24mil on IR/LTIR in a clear rebuilding year, ridiculous.

Byron and Monahan are expected back, (and Id have to think CGY knows that Monahan is not coming back like he was) so theres 2 guys eating lower 6 spots, AT BEST (and likely 4th line), that are in no way part of the Habs future. So you PROBABLY have hoffman, dandanov, allen, armia, monahan and byron eating time that should be going to youth.

A clear bottom 8 team, thats too laden with flawed vets to realy engage the rebuild.

habs finished last last years because of injuries. Everybody that know hockey, know that if the habs wasnt injured like that, they would have finished in the middle. I love the haters lol. A real rebuild is what the sabres, the coyotes and the hawks are doing. The defense and the goaltenders show a rebuild. Not the forwards. Too much veterans and too much players that can grab 40 pts + if they stay healty. Ppl don't realized that last year, in offense, the habs played with half of the AHL team ( or almost half). Poehling, Dauphin, pezzetta was there for almost half of the years, thats 1 line of AHLers. + 24 games paquette. + all of the others that played some games. The defense and the goaltender duo will determinate the season, because the forwards will score more than last year.

if the team is near of the playoff, I'm not sure those players will be traded. if the team is not near, then hughes need to find a partner. Good luck lol

and if the defense do good and the goalie do good? Not super good, but just enough good? The offense will k!ll the chance to have a top 5 pick.

This is a bottom five team.

The middle six is very below average; a spine of Suzuki, Dvorak and Dach is not getting you very far, especially in the division where every other team either improved or didn't regress much.

No ifs.

The
defense
Is
bad