The Montreal Canadiens are the Eastern Conference\u2019s answer to the Nashville Predators. Every year, most pundits expect them to flop; the general perception is that the Habs just don\u2019t have that much talent. However, every year, Montreal finds a way to defy the odds and win. Will 2011-12 be Montreal\u2019s umpteenth Cinderella season or will the bottom finally fall out?<\/p>\n
MONTREAL CANADIENS<\/strong> The Habs were among the least active teams in free agency and the few moves they made were widely questioned. Past his prime, injury-prone Erik Cole will give Montreal some badly needed size up front \u2013 but for how many games? The Canadiens grossly overpaid for such a high-risk, medium-reward player.<\/p>\n The reward for defenseman Andrei Markov is higher but Montreal paid top dollar to re-sign a guy who has played 52 of a possible 164 games over the past two seasons. Can he still be an elite player at age 33?<\/p>\n The rest of Montreal\u2019s roster to me is Carey Price, P.K. Subban and the other guys. Price became an elite goaltender last season and should stay that way. Subban is a special talent on defense, an intimidator, a hard hitter and shooter, and a real game-changer. He\u2019s just getting started, too.<\/p>\n But where\u2019s the upside on the rest of Montreal\u2019s roster? Mike Cammalleri is in his prime and should chip in 30 or so goals but he\u2019s injury-prone. Brian Gionta, Scott Gomez and Tomas Plekanec are second-tier scorers on the wrong side of 30 years old. Max Pacioretty emerged as a scoring threat last season but his ceiling is low. If Andrei Kostitsyn was going to become an elite NHL goal scorer, it would\u2019ve happened by now.<\/p>\n Josh Gorges, Hal Gill, Jaroslav Spacek and Yannick Weber join Markov and Subban to form a pretty decent defense. The Habs should again be among the league\u2019s stingier teams.<\/p>\n It\u2019s amazing how similar the top four squads in the Northeast are in their approaches (not their skill levels). Boston, Buffalo, Toronto and Montreal all look like they\u2019ll rely on defense and goaltending more than scoring to succeed this season.<\/p>\n The problem for Montreal is that its model for success looks like the least sustainable of those four teams. \u00a0Too many of its most important forwards and defenseman are old and\/or injury prone. Markov is a major re-injury risk because his injuries were so severe. Cammalleri is a good bet to miss time again because he\u2019s small and brittle.<\/p>\n Montreal still has enough defensive ability and veteran savvy to be a competitive team this season \u2013 but I believe they\u2019ll be a bubble team that eventually finishes on the outside looking in. Fans of the Leafs\/Habs rivalry could be thrilled this season, as I see the No. 8 seed in the East coming down to an epic battle between the Leafs and Habs. This time, I think the younger, higher-upside Leafs will finally get the better of their old foes.<\/p>\n Look for 2011-12 to signal the start of what could be a long, painful rebuild for Montreal Canadiens, whose prospect cupboard is pretty bare. 2011-12 NHL Team Preview: Montreal Canadiens The Montreal Canadiens are the Eastern Conference\u2019s answer to the Nashville Predators. Every year, most pundits expect them to flop; the general perception is that the Habs just don\u2019t have that much talent. However, every year, Montreal finds a way to defy the odds and win. Will 2011-12 be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":27370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43469,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43453\/revisions\/43469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nStanley Cup odds: +2000<\/p>\n
\nPrediction:<\/strong>4th<\/sup>, Northeast Division<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"