Canadiens Analysis: Tiered Rankings For Individual Performances

With a full month of Montreal Canadiens hockey in the books, we have a decent sample size to assess the quality of effort provided by the club’s 2024-2025 edition.

With that in mind, it’s time to look back at individual performances to see how they fared in the first 16 games of the season.

To do so, we will break it down via tiers:

– Top tier: Outperformed expectations
– Middle tier: Met expectations
– Lower tier: Underperformed

Montreal Canadiens Player Who Surpassed Expectations

Cole Caufield: Sure, scoring every third shot is not sustainable, but it’s been fun to see the diminutive forward find twine consistently, a rare phenomenon in Montreal. As it stands, the 23-year-old leads the entire NHL in goal scored, with 12.

That being said, it’s been a somewhat rocky start for Caufield from an underlying numbers’ standpoint. We’ll applaud the hot start, but things can look much different next month if he doesn’t improve his possession, assists, and giveaway numbers.

Last 4 Canadiens to score in each of the team’s first 3 games of a season

Yanic Perreault: 2001-02
Lars Eller: 2013-14
Tomas Plekanec: 2014-15
Cole Caufield: 2024-25#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/NuuC5q55w1

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) October 12, 2024

Jake Evans: The 28-year-old centre is on pace to have the most productive season of his career by providing excellent two-way play while facing some of the top players on opposing teams. How he’s handled himself this year, juxtaposed with the team’s lack of NHL-calibre centre depth points to a contract extension at the end of this season.

Brendan Gallagher: The alternate captain is having a solid start to the season and ranks fourth in points while being the feisty catalyst of yesteryear. Compared to last season, when he looked exhausted after every shift, it appears the 32-year-old can follow the pace and is poised to be rewarded with accrued ice time any day. While his contract is still cause for concern, his play of late has most fans forgetting about cap hits.

Justin Barron: An unfortunate injury kept Barron on the sidelines for a few games and halted the great start to the season he was enjoying. History seems to be repeating itself, as a lack of situational awareness might have been at the root of the injury. Hopefully, the young defender can pick up his play and show growth in his game this year, but at age 22, patience is still required as we’re still years away from seeing the final product.

Lane Hutson: While the expectations were sky-high, Lane Hutson still managed to wow the creativity-starved Habs faithful. Hutson has seen his share of ‘welcome to the NHL’ moments, and will have to improve in many areas of his game. On the other side of the coin, on most nights, he’s the lone player who manages to generate any semblance of offence, and shows resilience whenever he commits a turnover. Martin St-Louis and staffers trust him and already understand the risk-reward that comes with this type of player.

It appears Hutson’s style of play is rubbing off onto his teammates, as we see more hip fakes and dekes from other defencemen. The last piece to fall into place this year will occur when Hutson is given the permanent role as the team’s first-unit powerplay quarterback.

Lane Hutson was close to being all over SC tomorrow. He’s a one man breakout and zone entry. The edge work is on full display here and it is beautiful. pic.twitter.com/1KpZCMgx2R

— Rachel Doerrie (@racheldoerrie) October 29, 2024

Montreal Canadiens Players Who Met Expectations

Kirby Dach: Ranking him here is more of a testament to tempered expectations than a direct result of his good play. Returning to action after missing an entire season requires time and patience. He is trying things that often don’t succeed and seemed to be missing a step for most of that first month of play. Dach’s nonverbal language indicates he is frustrated with his own play; sometimes, that’s enough to get in your own way. The season is still young, but you have to think Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton are hoping to fully assess whether they have a budding top-6 centre in him. It’s one of the most important questions that needs answering in the team’s long term rebuild plans.

Emil Heineman: Quietly, it’s been a decent start for Heineman, who saw some offensive success in a few games while acclimating to life in the big leagues. His possession metrics are looking good, and there’s hope to see a second gear once he uses his big frame further and fully adjusts to the NHL. If he does, an uptick in ice time would be warranted.

SNIPE by Heineman in the shootout: pic.twitter.com/5hibiP0cCI

— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) October 20, 2024

Michael Pezzetta: For a team that has been pushed around a bit and saw some players being targeted with headshots at times, you’d think Pezzetta would have been dressed more often than the three games he’s played. While he’s been decent when called upon, providing a little extra energy by finishing his checks, it appears St-Louis is not too fond of what his extra attacker brings to the ice. Will he walk as a UFA at the end of the year?

Nick Suzuki: It may be harsh to label your captain, the highest-paid (save for Laine), and top-producing player, as just meeting expectations, but here we are. Suzuki’s stellar two-way play of previous years is not apparent, and his possession metrics aren’t great either. This is a player who is notorious for slow starts of the season, so we’ll be somewhat indulgent, but as the team seems to become more and more complacent as the defeats pile up, you wish he’d show a little more fire and grit, and rally the team with his play, just as he did on Monday afternoon when he powered the Canadiens to a thrilling 6-5 win over the Buffalo Sabres.

Kaiden Guhle: A strong presence on the backend, with few mistakes, and who is effective in breakouts when healthy. But just like Barron, history is repeating itself, as Kaiden Guhle can leave himself vulnerable at times, particularly while retrieving pucks, and has missed significant time to injury as a result. Kent Hughes also has a conundrum to solve, as the current logjam on the left side of the defence often causes Guhle to play on the right side, something he manages well, all things considered, but with less effectiveness than on his strong side. It would be a disaster if this deployment hindered the 22-year-old’s development.

Mike Matheson: Once again, very discretely, Mike Matheson finds his way into the top 10 in powerplay points for a defenceman in the NHL. It appears the veteran still makes the most of his ice time while simultaneously making odd decisions at least once per game. With Hutson breathing down his neck for the spot, he cannot underperform — and so far, has managed to keep the trust of his coaching staff. His 5v5 play has been downright awful at times, but hey, that’s Mike Matheson for you. You have to take the good with the bad. He’s also leading the team in penalty minutes, which is something he may want to look into.

David Savard: Savard has been playing the type of hockey we’ve known from him ever since joining the  Canadiens. His offensive output is barely existent, but he’s been decent in his zone, insulating (at times and to some degree) Hutson’s offence-first style of play. It has been theorized he will be used as trade bait at this upcoming trade deadline, but with the way this team has been playing, could they really afford losing one of their few veteran blue liners — who plays on a thin right side to boot?

Arber Xhekaj: It’s been a rocky start to the season for the hulking defenceman, but things have stabilized recently. Similar to last year, things have not been extra smooth in his zone, but he’s boasting one of the best Corsi For % and shot differential amongst defencemen, trailing only Jayden Struble.

Juraj Slafkovsky: Slafkovsky finished last season with 19 points in his last 19 games while dictating the play, looking strong along the boards, and using his massive frame to cause chaos in the crease. His confidence was thriving, and as a result, he was handed a very rich eight-year contract extension. Unfortunately, Slafkovsky is yet to find his rhythm this season, especially in the consistency department, but a recent uptick in scoring has propelled him to third in team scoring, with one goal and 10 assists in 13 games.

Another big play by Slafkovsky here. Suzuki’s second goal of the game gives the #GoHabsGo the lead. pic.twitter.com/9ptXJmRLNE

— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) November 11, 2024

Jayden Struble: It doesn’t feel like we’re seeing the Struble who looked almost immaculate in his first dozen games in the NHL. He’s made some questionable plays, had some bad turnovers, some costly. All things considered, he’s still playing well enough to be on this team — and his underlying numbers look good. Perhaps it’s a case of the eye test and advanced metrics not agreeing.

Underperforming Montreal Canadiens Players

Josh Anderson: It appears Anderson is headed for another season below 40 points, which is rich for a guy commanding his salary and the associated term. He doesn’t look as lost or unconfident as last year and still leads the team in hits and penalty drawn. So, while he doesn’t impact the scoresheet much, there are components of his game that are still valuable.

Christian Dvorak: It’s hard to get excited by Dvorak’s body of work, but when you look at his xGF% (expected goal share) differentials, the numbers paint the story of someone who somehow manages to stay afloat while many others are downing. It may be a bit discouraging to entertain the thought, but being the best faceoff guy on the team (and one of the few left-handed centres), could Kent Hughes be tempted to extend the 28-year-old veteran?

Joel Armia: At the start of last season, Armia was sent down to Laval in a gutsy move by Martin St-Louis to motivate the veteran. He looked much better when recalled by the team and closed the season with a decent point tally while looking strong on the puck in most presences. For a player on the verge of becoming a UFA, it’s been disappointing to see him revert to that lackadaisical, enigmatic player. It would appear this is the last year he’ll be wearing the Bleu-Blanc-Rouge.

Alex Newhook: Alex Newhook has been bounced up and down the lineup and hasn’t really found any consistency or offensive success. His possession metrics are among the worst in the team, and so is his +/- (yes, it’s a bad stat, but still). You have to think Kent Hughes has been disappointed by the performance of a player he explicitly targeted and traded for. There is some good news, as Newhook has enjoyed an uptick in scoring recently, but he will have to score with more regularity if he’s to become an important part of the lineup moving forward.

Fantastic speed through the NZ for Alex Newhook, and a deflection off Hamilton’s stick leads to his second goal of the game. One goal game. #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/GWJgRXQMXf

— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) November 8, 2024

Samuel Montembeault: It appeared Montembeault had picked up where he left off last season, as evidenced by his record-setting shutout win over the Toronto Maple Leafs to open the 2024-25 schedule, but the netminder has faltered ever since. We must keep in mind he plays behind one of the worst defensive teams in the league, so, in a sense, it’s difficult to completely pin the Canadiens’ woes on Montembeault’s poor starts, but he just hasn’t been as stellar as he was last season. Gone are the days of Montembeault stealing points in the standings. Once the team tightens up their defensive play, he should see his statistics improve by leaps and bounds.

Cayden Primeau: It’s been a tough start for the 25-year-old goalie, who is struggling to establish himself as an NHL-level player. Granted, the defensive setup has been dysfunctional, but with Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler in the pipeline, it’s hard not to be underwhelmed by a pending UFA who is sporting a .845% save percentage while in the hot seat. Is the writing on the wall for this longtime prospect?

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