The Montreal Canadiens exceeded expectations this past season by making it into the Stanley Cup playoffs and putting up a decent fight against the Washington Capitals.
This summer, with the blockbuster trade acquisition of former New York Islanders star defenseman Noah Dobson, expectations for the Canadiens will be even higher in 2025-26.
But even with Dobson on board – and with him making Montreal’s defense corps one of the better ones in the NHL – how high is the bar for the Canadiens? And how should Habs ownership and management deal with the results that come in throughout the season?
In the grand scheme of things, the Habs overachieved last season. Although their core of young talent was admirable in that they made themselves a playoff team despite the odds not being in their favor, there were few observers who believed they could actually do it.
The Canadiens were last in the Eastern Conference by American Thanksgiving last year, which is the unofficial point where teams in or out of a playoff spot generally stay there.
But under the guidance of coach-of-the-year candidate Martin St-Louis, Montreal’s players pushed the envelope and went 32-20-8 the rest of the season. Nick Suzuki was tied for the ninth-most points in the NHL from Nov. 29 onward, with 69 in 60 games, and Calder Trophy winner Lane Hutson increased his offensive production to get 54 points. Cole Caufield had 24 goals and 52 points, while Sam Montembeault and Jakub Dobes were a reliable tandem in net.
This team came away from the season putting its opponents on notice – getting into the playoffs would be a bare minimum from this point on.
If the Canadiens take a step back, it would be a disappointing campaign. But it wouldn’t be the first time a young team suffered a setback and wobbled a bit. Progress isn’t always linear. In the highly competitive Atlantic Division, Montreal will have a slew of teams gunning to overtake them and squeeze into the playoffs in a wild-card spot, including the Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres, Boston Bruins and, in the Metropolitan Division, the New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets.
That said, if the Canadiens disappoint and miss the playoffs, it would be a huge mistake to do anything drastic with this group. Habs GM Kent Hughes has painstakingly put this group together, and it would make no sense to start dismantling part of the core simply because they failed to meet expectations in a single season.
The full-time arrivals of Dobson, Zack Bolduc and rookie Ivan Demidov will ramp up expectations, but things go awry for the Canadiens. Maybe they dig another early-season hole and cannot dig out of it the way they did this past season, when the Rangers and Bruins dropped out.
Of course, that’s the pessimistic point of view. The optimistic view is that Montreal builds on last season’s performance and follows up a strong regular season in ’25-26 by winning a playoff round or two. But the Canadiens will probably be a playoff underdog no matter who they take on in the opening round next spring, simply because their youngsters haven’t demonstrated they have the wherewithal to send a veteran team packing in the post-season.
It took a long time for the Canadiens to get back on the right track and re-establish themselves as a team to reckon with, and nothing that happens next season should result in management and fans allowing their eyes to wander off the ultimate goal for the organization – namely, being a Cup front-runner year in and year out for the next decade or longer.
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