As the third full season of the Montreal Canadiens rebuild approaches, general manager Kent Hughes should start to see his team develop into a group that many will be inclined to believe is on the “up-and-up,” rather than one that is immediately competitive.
Sure, being in contention would be nice, but it won’t be easy to defeat clubs like the Florida Panthers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, and Buffalo Sabres. The Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning may finally regress, but there’s a decent chance Montreal overtakes the Ottawa Senators. The Habs won’t be able to realistically defeat the latter two teams just yet.
The good news is that they don’t now require a dominant performance in the Atlantic Division. The playoffs will eventually arrive if Hughes continues to improve this team from the previous season.
If Hughes and the Canadiens make the feared “step back,” it won’t be acceptable. That hasn’t been a problem in his first two seasons with the Habs, as Hughes has helped this team grow, going from 68 points in 2022–2023 to 76 points this season. If he does everything right and the Habs manage to reach about 85 points in that third year of building for 2024–25, then Montreal should have a blast in 2025–26.
What kinds of traps, then, might cause the Habs to stall out in their systematic rebuild thus far? We listed the three key blunders he has to stay away from in the slides that follow in order to maintain this organization’s successful trajectory into 2024–2025 and beyond.
