The Montreal Canadiens enjoyed a successful season this past year as they made the postseason for the second campaign in a row. It is safe to say the rebuild in Montreal is over; this team has entered contention status.
The Canadiens made it all the way to the eastern conference final after ousting the Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres. Their season came to an end in round three, following last night’s 6-1 blowout loss in Game 5 at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes.
While this team made some solid progress, there is still work to do in order to make that next leap towards becoming a Stanley Cup winning squad. In terms of offseason needs, Montreal should look at adding another strong top-six piece to the forward core.
Montreal Should Target a Second-Line Center
Perhaps the biggest weakness of this Montreal team was the center depth. After Nick Suzuki, the talent pool drops off a cliff without a true second-line center to complement their captain.
Kirby Dach was supposed to be that player for this Canadiens team. That was the vision when the club acquired him in 2022 from the Chicago Blackhawks. However, that has not happened as Dach has been inconsistent and injury-prone throughout his tenure with the Habs.
Reporter Renaud Lavioe has urged on Real Kyper and Bourne that the Canadiens need to make an upgrade at 2C this summer. He mentioned the sense of urgency from general manager Kent Hughes when it comes to meeting this objective, citing the fact he tried to make a move during this most recent trade deadline to no avail.
Hughes was able to bring in a shutdown third line center with the Philip Danualt trade. Danault proved to be effective in his defensive forward role for Montreal in this latest postseason. But, he does not have the offensive output in his game to fill that hole on the second line.
Montreal Needs More Support in the Top-Six
This type of addition would make sense for the team to make. Montreal needs more weapons to work with beyond their star-studded first line of Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky. Too often that line has been relied upon to produce the vast majority of this team’s offense. As demonstrated in the Carolina series, when that formation is shut down the Montreal scoring dries up.
The Canadiens could use a solid second-line center that can drive his own line, similar to what Suzuki has been able to do up front. Journalist Francois Gagnon brought up further reasoning as to why this move would make sense. He stated that it would take some pressure off of the first line and also provide Ivan Demidov more options to work with that could get the best out of him.
Most championship winning teams have a formidable one-two center combo in the top-six that makes life difficult on the opposition to shut down. One line does not win a Stanley Cup. If Montreal is to break through for Lord Stanley with this young core; it is vital they continue to upgrade the top of their lineup.
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