As the sun sets on the year 2024, people around the world have started considering their 2025 New Year’s resolutions. Certain individuals will remain steadfastly dedicated to them, while others will throw in the towel as some do two weeks into dry January. NHL teams should have resolutions, too. Some clubs could certainly use them, among them the Montreal Canadiens. In the spirit of the tradition, here are suggestions for the Canadiens’ 2025 New Year’s resolutions.
Figuring Out the Backup Goalie Situation
A brief preamble before this exercise gets underway. Although this might be obvious to some, resolutions for the calendar year 2025 do not need to be broached exclusively between Jan. 1 and the conclusion of the 2024-25 campaign. Some of these could require the summer offseason or even the first couple months of the 2025-26 season.
With that said, one fairly obvious point of contention is the netminder predicament. Incidentally, on Friday, Dec. 27, Montreal made a phone call to its American Hockey League affiliate (AHL), the Laval Rocket, and asked for crease keeper Jakub Dobes. He’ll tag along during the club’s current road swing, with pit stops this weekend in Florida to play the Panthers (Dec. 28) and Tampa Bay to play the Lightning (Dec. 29).
Not that this author possesses a crystal ball or anything fantastical of that nature, but searching for and pinpointing clear answers for the delicate situation between the pipes was already on the docket before the Dobes news.
For a franchise that prides itself on sporting some of the greatest keepers in the league’s history (Jacques Plante, Ken Dryden, Patrick Roy, among others), in late 2024, it truly feels as if Montreal has fallen like a rock. That’s not a stab at current number one netminder Samuel Montembeault. He’s perfectly fine and, occasionally, great. But Plante, Dryden, or Roy he is not. He’s not even Carey Price, who despite all the plaudits and individual honours never won a Stanley Cup.
At the very least, through 27 starts in 2024-25, the Quebécois native is experiencing his best campaign with a goals-against average (GAA) of 2.94. Last season it was 3.14, and in 2022-23 an unenviable 3.42. As per MoneyPuck, he ranks 19th league-wide in goals saved above expected with 5.0. Moreover, by removing the netminders in that list who have played fewer than 10 games, he’s 17th. Seeing him in third concerning expected goals against (79.02) is also quite reassuring.
But, as evidenced multiple times this season, he can’t steal as many games as supporters would like, and by golly, judging by some performances, the Canadiens are in dire need of a goalie who can act as a thief on any given night.
Complicating matters is Cayden Primeau’s lack of improvement. If anything, he’s dispiritingly worse than last season. In 2023-24, nobody viewed him as a Goliath killer, but a 2.99 GAA and a .910 save percentage (SV%) suggested head coach Martin St. Louis could give him the nod, and the team had a decent shot at getting a result.
This season? A 4.70 GAA and .836 SV% through 11 matches. He’s fifth-worst in the NHL for goals saved above expected at minus-9.5. His expected GAA is currently pegged at 3.66. News flash: the Habs net 2.94 times per game.
The Laval Rocket have rode with the aforementioned Jakub Dobes and Connor Hughes. Both crack the AHL’s top 20 keepers in SV%, with Dobes placing 17th (.910) and Hughes 20th (.908). Of the two, Dobes is seen as potentially having a serious future with the Canadiens by way of being the youngest. The 23-year-old was drafted in 2020 by Montreal. This is less a matter of dealing Montembeault elsewhere and more of securing a truly dependable backup. Who knows, maybe a backup will steal the number one job.
Assessing Martin St. Louis’s Future
We plead guilty of a click-bait sub-header. That said, the front office, led by general manager (GM) Kent Hughes, can only preach patience for so long. St. Louis was brought in to replace Dominque Ducharme in February 2022 and was officially named the head coach in June of that year.
No one would dare contest his career and accolades on the ice, but he was put behind the bench with limited coaching experience. It was a bold move, and to be honest, it’s unclear if it has paid off two and half years later. What has happened since February 2022 that tells analysts, fans, and Hughes that St. Louis is unquestionably and indisputably the man for the job?
The reasoning goes deeper than the team missing the playoffs in 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24. After all, Montreal has been in rebuilding mode since the morning after they lost Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final in July 2021. To say he hasn’t done his job would, in some respects, be harsh. The aspect of his journey so far that plants the seed of doubt is the nature of the results.
At the tail end of last season, the performances gave a glimmer of hope. The team was by no means great, but there was something there to hold on to. That momentum has proven to be more fragile than expected. Granted, the Patrik Laine injury during preseason may have rattled whatever plans Montreal had as the campaign loomed. But there is “rattled,” and there are 6-3, 7-2, 8-2, 6-2, and 9-2 defeats.
Those are performances that indicate that the Canadiens aren’t mentally tough. At least, they lack the consistency that must partner with psychological fortitude. When it rains, it’s a tropical storm of cataclysmic proportions for this group. That has to do with coaching, communicating with players about how to weather the storm and what battles to win despite that a given night’s outcome doesn’t favour them.
Is the message the wrong one? Are the players not listening? Is it a question of waiting longer to see how St. Louis and this particular group jell? Is it a problem of a very young team and an inexperienced head coach resulting in a distasteful cocktail?
St. Louis is easy to like. Bluntly, he’s a rare breed of coach who doesn’t lose his mind mid-game with hissy fits and shouting matches. A relatively level-headed NHL coach makes for a refreshing change. But some of the performances are downright awful. Worse, the extremely tepid 2024-25 expectations may not even be met. And they were low.
Patience, patience, patience. Fine, but how much? For how long? What is Hughes looking for? What is his barometer? For that matter, what is St. Louis’? The second half of the 2024-25 season may be more informative about the franchise’s future than expected.
Player Development: Heinemen, Mailloux, Struble, Etc
Arguing that players must be developed is about the most obvious, simple-minded point one can make about any team in any professional sports league, hockey or otherwise. Naturally, we’re talking about specifics in Montreal’s case.
When results are as poor as they’ve been in 2024-25, it lends perspective. The negatives worryingly stand out, and the positives get people excited. Sometimes too excited, perhaps, but the Canadiens have a ton of work to do if they want to be competitive sooner rather than later, even if “sooner” is in a year or two.
To that point, the coaching staff perpetually evaluates what works and what doesn’t. Who is meeting expectations, who is exceeding them, and who might the club need to cut ties with at some point?
Related: Canadiens Finally Healthy & Back in the Mix
A few players stand out from the overall campaign’s miasma of mediocrity. Emil Heineman, so often relegated to the fourth line, is having himself a more than respectable season. Having tallied eight goals and six assists for 14 points and an even plus/minus rating, the young Swede is someone to consider as a candidate to move up the pecking order should things get even worse this season or next.
We recently published a piece about blueliner Jayden Struble and the relative stability he provided, especially when partnered with Arber Xhekaj. Right on cue, he’s been a scratch ever since, having still only played in 22 games. He’s either part of future plans or was a placeholder while the club figured out what it wanted to do with Justin Barron – traded to the Nashville Predators in exchange for Alexandre Carrier – or while David Reinbacher nurses his knee injury. That decision resides with the club, but his play is deserving of more ice time than he’s currently benefitting from.
Oliver Kapanen is another figure who got some decent play time earlier in the season (12 games) before being loaned to his Finnish club Timrå IK. Then there is defenceman Logan Mailloux, currently with the Rocket, who played in five games to give supporters a taste of what he’s capable of. Not as popular as Lane Hutson, Mailloux has nevertheless caught the attention of those in the know.
These are all players who can help the club, and that’s not even mentioning some of the prospects lighting it up in the AHL, such as Joshua Roy and Owen Beck.
Conversely, big decisions will need to be made about Josh Anderson, Jake Evans (who is playing much better lately, to be completely fair), Christian Dvorak, and, alas, Kirby Dach. The latter is the most unfortunate of the maligned Habs. He’s still young, and we’ve written extensively about how many of his in-depth statistics reveal that he’s giving it his all. Said decisions need not be arrived at immediately, but surely Montreal can’t keep him around forever with a minus-24 rating (as of Dec. 27). For that matter, Alex Newhook isn’t playing many dividends these days, either.
Times are tough in Montreal, no doubt about it. It’s all part of being in a testy rebuilding chapter in the franchise’s history, to say nothing of operating in one of the most unforgiving hockey markets in the NHL. These New Year’s resolutions should be considered, however much they make one bristle. “More of the same” is not an option, nor should it, given that the Canadiens are heading toward a fourth-successive playoff-less season. A lot of snow fell this week in Montreal – par for the course at this time of year – but it wouldn’t do for the club to get snuck in a snowstorm for much longer.
