That defense needs work. But the offense is pretty solid on paper. REM isn’t a fourth liner. He was great in the top six role. It won’t be as people say it will. It’s almost the same group that was in the playoffs, you need a true re tho. Weber and petry where that.anyways. Cole will score 40 goals

Goaltending is awful, and Defense is inexperienced.

The former, well, they need to shop the goalie market next offseason if Primeau demonstrates he can't take any legitimate step forward. With only Andersen and Jarry being worthwhile options, they would have to see a trade option.

The latter, it will be good for Guhle, Harris, and Xhekaj to get a chance to play against NHL caliber players, in order to know how to train in the offseason.

Forward core isn't awful, they're 3 lines deep, a bunch of 20 goal scorers, just depends if Slaf can find his scoring touch ala Caufield and Dach living up to his draft expectations.

that team making the playoffs in a mutant short covid season with a North division doesnt mean anything. They basically paced out to 86 points over a 82 game season. Last year, the lowest point total to make the playoffs was the Caps with 100, in 2019, the last full season before that the cut off was Columbus with 98.

I didn’t say they would make the playoffs

so then what was the point of bringing up that this team is close to that one that did? It's just a bad team without the once in a life time circumstances this time. They were bad then, they are still bad now

Only 7 of the players above played in those playoffs. Wouldn't say it's almost the same.

they have a too many complimentary pieces but no true studs-yet!

you right. i remeber that pciture from twitter

They are in a great spot in my mind. Their defence and their goaltending is bad, so they will struggle. But they have a lot of good young pieces and a lot of vets up front. They should be able to sell a few guys at the deadline for more picks/prospects. If they can get out from Anderson and/or Gallagher as well and get assets for them, they should do that.

The team is set up nicely for the future!

If everyone plays to their potential that forward group is fairly decent actually, the defense and goaltending is really rough though.

I am quoting you not because you said it but because the one that did I blocked.



We also only finished 2 points out of the playoffs in 2019 (behind Columbus) it came down to the final game of the season that year but everyone focuses on the covid shortened season as the outlier. Everyone played the same teams is 2020 and only played within their divisions. None of the divisions were particularily unbalanced, the West division had SJ, LA, Ana and Ati who all finished with less points than the Habs. The Central had Det, Dal, Chi and Clb with Fallas only having 1 more points than Montreal and the rest having less points. The East had the stiffest competition with only NJ and Buffalo being "weak" teams with less points than Montreal with PHI had 1 point less and NYR had 1 point more than the Habs. BTW the "weak" North division had Tor, Win, Van, Edm and Cal who were playoff teams or bubble teams the year prior and/or after the Habs went to the finals. Also the road to the cup final was through Tor, Win and VGK and those teams haven't really had much roster turnover (at least compared to Montreal). I hate the narrative that Montreal only made the playoff cause of the North division, well Vegas only made it cause of the west division and Nashville only made it cause they were in the central. Those other 2 divisions were "weaker" than the North division. If I remember correctly Montreal didn't have a winning record against anyone but Vancouver and Calgary but Vegas played Anaheim, SJ, LA and Arizona 9 times each and still barely made the playoffs. It is a lame argument conjured up by salty fanbases the Habs ran over to say we "only made the playoffs cause of the North division". No we made it cause we outplayed the teams within our division (same reason every team that makes the playoffs does every year). The fact that we were all in the North division instead of the Atlantic makes no difference, who knows how the points would have fallen in the Atlantic with Detroit, Ottawa and Buffalo all there. Unless you are a fortune teller capable of reading tea leaves accurately, we can speculate butno one can know for certain whether we would have made it or no playing just teams in the Atlantic and anyone who tries to tell you they "know" Montreal wouldn't have made it in the Atlantic is just a troll!