Things are starting to come together for the Montreal Canadiens. Fresh off their first playoff appearance since they reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2021, the Canadiens are making believers out of everyone that another championship series is in their not-too-distant future, based on several factors:
- An administration that was given the mandate to rebuild the team instead of just retool year after year
- The growth they’ve experienced every year since the bottom fell out and they finished last in 2021-22
- The high draft picks and top-end talent they’ve stockpiled since then
- The young core, one of the youngest in the league, that is at little risk of aging out of contention anytime soon
While the Canadiens got eliminated in a mere five games in Round 1, this is clearly just the beginning. The general consensus is they’ll enjoy significantly more success in 2025-26. That success should take the following forms, on this list of the top things Habs fans can look forward to next season:
5) Gallagher’s Quest for 500
The hope is Brendan Gallagher’s career resurgence continues, after he scored 21 goals and 38 points, his highest totals since the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season. The now-33-year-old had slumped significantly since, dropping down the depth chart after having been a mainstay on the team’s top line as an elite-level winger (looking primarily at analytics). So, from even just a simple feel-good-story standpoint, fans should want to see him rewarded.
Sitting at 464 points though, Gallagher is technically within reach of 500 for his career (into Bob Gainey, who has 501, territory), if he replicates last season’s totals. And, not for nothing, but another 20-goal season would vault him past Mats Naslund, Claude Provost, Dickie Moore, Howie Morenz and Mario Tremblay into the franchise’s all-time Top 10 in that category.
Fans may not like Gallagher’s contract, but they should love the man. Separating the two, it becomes easier to cheer for the guy as he chases immortality. Objectively speaking, he’s en route to earning himself a lasting place in Canadiens lore (if he hasn’t secured one already).
4) Price’s Final Season
Speaking of all-time greats, no one should want the injured Carey Price to retire. However, seeing as he hasn’t played since 2022, it’s beyond time for everyone to close the book on his career, especially as the Canadiens have had to perpetually place his $10.5 million cap hit on long-term injured reserve, which has handcuffed them, relative to performance-bonus overages.
The tradition ends in 2025-26, with Price’s eight-year contract. In a best-case scenario, those circumstances could facilitate a trade to a team looking to get over the cap floor. If not, it’s only one more season before the Canadiens can make bigger swings in free agency and on the trade front than they have already.
3) Dobson’s First Season with Canadiens
That’s saying something, considering the waves the Canadiens made by acquiring defenseman Noah Dobson ahead of the NHL Entry Draft. It’s not often an in-his-prime first-pairing defenseman becomes available via trade (or even free agency). So, the Habs winning the sweepstakes here by, dealing their two first-round picks and bottom-six-forward Emil Heineman to the New York Islanders, is huge.
Critics can point to defensive gaffes and say the Canadiens paid too much to first acquire and then sign him (eight years, $76 million). However, at the end of the day, you’re talking about a player the Islanders entrusted with the most ice time for the last two seasons, finishing at .500 this past one and earning the third Metropolitan playoff spot in 2023-24, when he scored a career-high 70 points.
Needless to say, the Islanders would have re-signed him if they could, but his reported initial demands ($11 million) were just too high. So, consider the $9.5 million cap hit for which the Canadiens are on the hook a relative bargain for an incredibly talented player who adds another, necessary dimension to the team’s defense.
Related: Canadiens’ 5 Worst Contracts for 2025-26 Season
The Canadiens had needed to replace the retiring David Savard on the right side on defense. It’s safe to say they did just that and more. One season after Lane Hutson scored 66 points on the left, the Canadiens now have a similarly high-powered weapon on the right, which should work wonders for the team when transitioning to offense. Everyone likes offense.
2) Demidov’s Rookie Season
It’s more than just what Hutson has in store for an encore after just winning the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s best rookie. Although that’s something to look forward to in and of itself, fans are more so salivating over what rookie Ivan Demidov can accomplish over a full season after surprisingly coming over from the Kontinental Hockey League to end last season and wowing fans, in just a single period of work, when he tallied a goal and an assist to start his NHL career.
It’s far from outside the realm of possibility that Demidov follows in Hutson’s footsteps and give the Canadiens a second-straight Calder as the odds-on favourite , which would be the first time since 1966-68 (Bobby Orr, Derek Sanderson for the Boston Bruins). The idea alone is enough to give fans sensory overload, thinking of the two Habs working their magic together on the power play (along with Dobson and everyone else). Stopping short of awarding Demidov the award here and now, because there is an entire season that needs to be played, Habs fans can conceivably look forward to just that over the next decade or so.
It starts now.
1) Playoffs?!
Toss aside the negative-connotation concept of heightened expectations for a minute. At face value, as reportedly the youngest team in NHL history to ever make the playoffs, the Canadiens should organically improve on their own. They are objectively, undisputedly a team on the rise. Any suggestions to the contrary are an affront to common sense and likely rooted in bias against the organization.
The Canadiens may still be incomplete, in the sense they have a widely publicized hole at centre on the Line 2, at least as things stand now, in mid-July. Kirby Dach hasn’t worked out up to now, and, following a second straight season-ending knee injury, it’s unlikely he will in the future. However, if Dach has been so disappointing, it kind of speaks volumes of the Habs’ chances moving forward that they made the playoffs with him entrenched in that role. Critics can’t really have it both ways.
Dach should be back in time for next season. Where he ultimately lines up is almost inconsequential. If it’s on the wing, he adds to the depth there, while Alex Newhook or Oliver Kapanen can replace him down the middle and realistically experience similar success. The Canadiens are a team that proved itself capable of winning consistently over long stretches last season. An additional year of experience to the young core should work miracles enabling the Habs as a whole to take the next step.
So, the playoffs are no longer a goal or a mere expectation. They’re more so something Canadiens fans are already and justifiably looking forward to, after having just gotten a small taste last spring. It used to be that anything can happen if you just make the playoffs. Now it’s “once they do.”
