NHL Entry Draft and free agent frenzy completed, the dog days of summer wear on as NHL management groups take a bit of a breather before the training camps begin. In this series, I will try to investigate every Montreal Canadiens roster player, recap their last season and look ahead to this upcoming season. I will look at their place in the organization, their role and their possible impact.
Related: Canadiens 2025-26 Player Previews: Patrik Laine
In the next step of the series, we continue our look at the Canadiens’ forward group, with Kirby Dach.
2024-25 Season Recap
Dach may be the Canadiens’ most interesting storyline. His season was derailed by injury once again, and while the timing of it was unfortunate, his performance before going down left much to be desired. He finished the 2024-25 season with 10 goals and 22 points in 57 games, and a woeful minus-29, which isn’t a statistic that can be used on its own, but the fact it was the worst on the team, and by quite a bit, it does help to highlight what the eye test showed, that he had significant difficulties defensively as he seemed to be a little slow in his reaction times.
Dach was brought in as he was seen as a good two-way centre with exceptional hockey sense. He has great size at 6-foot-4 and 221 pounds, but he doesn’t use it to initiate physical play; instead, he uses it to absorb physical play but uses that and his long reach to protect the puck and control the play, especially when playing a cycle game. All of this helps him generate passing lanes, which he exploits to generate scoring opportunities. Unfortunately, he has been inconsistent in his time in Montreal, and also, his faceoff abilities leave much to be desired, finishing 2024-25 at only a 40.3% success rate, which is a career high. Also, the Canadiens’ run to the playoffs truly began well after his season ended, showing they were able to battle on effectively without him.
Dach underwent surgery to repair his right knee, and to make matters worse, it’s the same knee that ended his 2023-24 season. Yet before this injury, he hadn’t missed a single game last season. However, he has played just 59 games over the last two seasons combined. This in itself is a major concern. There were games he showed he could use his skill sets to dominate a game, but as mentioned, the biggest frustration is the lack of consistency. According to Natural Stat Trick, for the 2024-25 season, his on-ice statistics over the entire season were weak with a Corsi for percentage of 44.6%, an expected goals for percentage of 45.2% and a high danger chances percentage of 45.09.
Dach’s underwhelming season leaves questions about the second-line centre role. There was hope he would seize the opportunity to anchor the second unit and provide much-needed depth at centre and give Nick Suzuki some support, especially offensively in the top-six.
Unfortunately, whether because of his recovery from injury caused him to not train enough in the offseason to start in top form, or he couldn’t find his timing, his inconsistent play and lack of production before the injury proved unable to fill that need. Looking ahead, it’s unclear if Dach can be a solution at centre.
2025-26 Season Expectations
Dach may be the most interesting and integral player going into the 2025-26 season. His play will dictate what team management will do next. Will they make a trade, or will he reach the potential they hoped he could play at when they traded for him back in 2022? At 24 years of age, he is entering the final year of his contract that will pay him $3.362 million against the salary cap, and he is set to be a restricted free agent (RFA) in the offseason. With the upwards trajectory for the rebuild taking a little less time than anticipated, his opportunities to make himself valued are shrinking.
Executive vice president Jeff Gorton said at the end-of-season press conference that the time for Dach to prove he can be the solution as a second-line centre is running out. He will need to get healthy and prove that he can help the Canadiens right now and in the long term. However, Gorton didn’t look overly confident, going on to say that Dach would need a big camp to hit the ground running. Even with him at full health, the Canadian Sportsbooks don’t give the Canadiens great odds at earning a playoff spot, which will likely only serve as motivation for Dach and his teammates.
While there was no promise made back in February about him being prepared to start the upcoming season, in the Canadiens’ press release about his injury, it was mentioned that he was expected to be ready for the start of the 2025-26 campaign. Dach is big and physical, and he plays with an edge, all the things that general manager (GM) Kent Hughes would be looking for in a prospective second-line centre. Hughes briefly talked about Dach’s health status and mentioned the hope is that the centre will be ready to go at the start of the season or at some point early in the fall. They can’t rush his return. After multiple injuries to the same knee, it takes time to regain strength and mobility. It will be crucial to get him fully up to game speed before returning to an NHL game. His availability and performance are a game-changer for the Canadiens.
There are some fans who will question Dach’s durability because he’s missed the majority of the last two seasons due to injuries, but also because this is the second time he’s injured this specific knee. With the Canadiens in desperate need of a second-line centre, the hope has been, and remains to be, that he would be ready to fill that role for the start of the 2025-26 season. While he may still end up being physically capable of dressing, the real question will be if he can finally become the centre the franchise needs now.
