Yesterday, The Athletic released its NHL Player Tiers 2026-27, and the Montreal Canadiens fared pretty well. In last year’s list, captain Nick Suzuki was part of Tier 3, which is the “All-Star” tier, but this year, he has moved up to Tier 2, that of “franchise players”. The center is not the only one who made that jump, though; the same goes for defenseman Lane Hutson.
As for Cole Caufield, he was in Tier 5 “Support” last season, but this year he jumps to Tier 3 All-Star. The Canadiens have two players in Tier 4 “Stars”: Noah Dobson and Juraj Slafkovsky. This is a repeat performance for Dobson, who was in that tier last season, although he went from 4A to 4B. As for the power forward, he didn’t even make the list last year, so that’s an interesting place to first appear.
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Montreal also has two players in Tier 5 this season: Ivan Demidov and Jakub Dobes. Unsurprisingly, neither was on the list last season, as they were rookies. The only Hab who was on the list last season and isn’t this year is Samuel Montembeault, for obvious reasons.
Are those rankings fair? For now, they are, since it’s about what’s been done so far and not what could eventually be done. However, one has to wonder what Suzuki would have to do to land in Tier 1 “MVP”. He may not have scored 120 points, but he still had 101 points while being the league’s top defensive forward. He’s a complete player, one who gives you offensive production but who you can also play when the game is on the line, and you have a lead to protect. Whatever the situation, Suzuki is the player you want to have on the ice. He’s also very tough to rattle; he never panics on the ice and has a calming influence on the team. The 27-year-old young veteran is the heartbeat of the Canadiens and one of, if not the, their most valuable players.
As for Hutson, the fact that he’s in Tier 2 is impressive. Oftentimes, Hutson doesn’t get the respect he deserves because people do not give him close to enough credit for the defensive side of his game, but it didn’t hurt him in this ranking. Will he ever make the jump to Tier 1? Time will tell; the article mentions that it remains to be seen if he’ll have a Quinn Hughes-like leap, but that’s not necessarily fair. After all, when Hughes first came onto the scene, he was very much a one-sided weapon, and he was shielded with easier defensive matchups; that’s not the case with Hutson, and it never has been. In that sense, he doesn’t need a Hughes-like leap; he needs to keep on steadily progressing to reach MVP status.
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