Offseason Review: Montreal Canadiens

Now that the dust has settled on a wild NHL offseason, let's take a look at how each team did in regards to drafting and free-agent signings. Today, we'll look at the Montreal Canadiens.

Montreal's Cinderella run to the Cup Finals this year was a story for the ages. A team that barely scraped their way into the playoffs on the back of a bunch of OT points, and then found themselves down 3 games to 1 against the powerhouse Toronto Maple Leafs, rallied behind their captain Shea Weber and their legendary goaltender Carey Price and won 7 straight games, blasting their way to the Conference Finals against Vegas. The Knights were dispatched in 6 games, but the Habs just didn't have the firepower to overcome the force of nature that is the Tampa Bay Lightning, and lost in the Finals in 5. It was a tough end to a great run, but that's not uncommon in an underdog story.

However, that Cup run pushed this Montreal team to the absolute brink. While Cole Caufield emerged as a high-skill scoring winger just as the team had hoped, both Shea Weber and Carey Price required surgery this summer. Price is expected to be ready to start the season. Weber may never play again. This nightmare scenario is only exacerbated by the loss of Phillip Danault, who established himself as one of the top shutdown centremen in the NHL during the Habs run. He entered unrestricted free agency and was signed by Los Angeles. GM Marc Bergevin had a lot of work to do this summer if he wants a repeat of his team's success next April. Let's see how he did.

Free Agency:

Montreal's first task was replacing Shea Weber, and they did about as well as they could, picking up the best available UFA defensive defenceman in David Savard. Savard is a native of Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, now playing for his hometown team. He did, however, just help Tampa Bay win the Cup by eliminating the Habs, which could make for an awkward homecoming. 

The other big name added to the Habs roster was Mike Hoffman, inked this summer to a four-year deal. Hoffman originally played on the Ottawa Senators but has bounced around the league a bit these last few years, spending some time with both the Florida Panthers and St. Louis Blues. The 31-year old LW brings something the Habs have needed since Max Pacioretty left for Vegas: pure goal-scoring ability. Since his first full NHL season, Hoffman has never scored less than 20 goals, minus last season where he scored 17 in 52 games. Hoffman is about as sure a thing as you can find on the UFA market these days, and his odds of finding success alongside Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield are pretty good. Montreal also picked up Cedric Paquette on a one-year deal, another former Lightning player although he split last season between Ottawa and Carolina, as well as former Jets' centre Matthieu Perrault, also for one year. The Habs have now all but ensured that they will never again have to ice a team that doesn't feature at least one Quebec native. Lastly, the Habs added depth defenceman Chris Wideman to their roster on a one-year contract.

The Habs held on to a few key players as well, signing Joel Armia to four years, and Artturi Lehkonen for one year. They extended prospects Lucas Vejdemo, Laurent Dauphin, Michael Pezzetta, Michael McNiven, and Alex Belzile on one-year, two-way contracts, and picked up Louie Belpedio, and Jean-Sebastien Dea off the market, also on one-year two-way deals.

Grade: A-; The Habs did some good work recovering from the loss of a couple very important players this summer. Their big additions all look to be contributors from day one, and a couple key depth pieces from their 2021 playoff run will be sticking around for another kick at the can. It's hard to know how much better Montreal will be in the regular season, but it's equally hard to argue that they've gotten any worse.

Draft:

The Habs moved a few picks around this year, punting a few down the road to the 2022 draft, which is considered to have a stronger crop than this year's. They had also added an extra 2nd-rounder in a swap with San Jose in the 2020 draft. However, there was some controversy surrounding the Habs 1st-round selection, and we'll have to cover that first.

At 31st overall, the Habs selected defenceman Logan Mailloux. Although Mailloux was initially ranked as high as 23rd overall in this year's draft,  he was criminally charged in Sweden with photographing an 18-year old woman without her consent while she was performing oral sex on him. He then distributed that photo to his teammates on a group chat, and also shared the victim's Facebook profile. The victim, who has not been publicly named, said that she requested a sincere apology from Mailloux, but what she got was only three sentences long. Mailloux formally requested that NHL teams not draft him this year, but the Habs decided to ignore that and selected him anyway. While at the end of the day they picked who they believed to be the best player available, it's hard to look at this selection and not see the Habs as sexual assault apologists. With all that said, Mailloux scored 7 goals and 15 points in 19 games while on loan to SK Lejon. He's one of those "offence first" DMen who put up points but struggle in their own end. Mailloux was a minus-14 on the year in Sweden.

The Habs picked back-to-back in the second round, 63rd and 64th overall. With those picks, they selected Riley Kidney and Oliver Kapanen. Kidney is one of the new breed of smaller skilled forwards, standing 5'11" but possessing a pair of silky smooth hands. He has excellent problem-solving skills and combines that with his creativity with the puck to dazzling effect. He skates well, receives passes while in motion, and has positive habits while in the offensive zone, all of which look to be skills that will translate to the NHL. Kapanen is the brother of Pittsburgh Penguins player Kasperi Kapanen. He is a bigger forward at 6'1", and plays a tougher game than Kidney. He has a strong scoring sense, and a quick, hard shot, but can just as easily entice defenders out of position before passing off to his teammate for a scoring chance. Finally, at 87th overall, Montreal selected Russian defenceman Dmitri Kostenko. Kostenko split time between the KHL's development leagues the MHL and VHL last season, playing 40 games in the VHL before moving up to the MHL for 10 games. He scored similar numbers in both, 1 goal and 10 points in the VHL, 1 goal and 9 points in the MHL, suggesting a steady upward progression. He was a plus player on the season in both leagues.

Grade: D; Montreal's selections in the second and third rounds show a lot of promise, but there's no eliminating the sour taste left by picking Logan Mailloux in the first round, ignoring the player's own wishes as well as the accusations against him. It's an ugly look for the Canadiens and a blemish on the face of the NHL, one that will take a lot of work to resolve appropriately.

Overall grade: C; The Habs did very good work in free agency, replacing a significant presence on their blueline in Shea Weber and filling out their forward roster to surround their young core. Their work at the draft left much to be desired and doesn't exactly paint the team in a positive light. 

What do you think of Montreal's offseason decisions?

Photo credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports