Dare to dream, if you’re a Montreal Canadiens fan heading into the 2023-24 season. Sure, the playoffs are probably outside the team’s reach, but that doesn’t preclude individual Habs from putting together extraordinary seasons. Simple physics do.
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There’s probably some complex equation you could cite explaining why, but the simple fact is this Canadiens team isn’t exactly built around elite talent. However, if things go exactly right for the Habs (and exactly wrong for everyone else), who’s to say they are incapable of doing what many see as impossible?
So, yes, the playoffs are an unlikelihood, to be kind. However, one thing is for sure: If the Canadiens do accomplish the supposedly impossible, it’s going to be on the strength of some extraordinary individual seasons, as unlikely as they are in their own right, as much as they wouldn’t guarantee much in terms of the team’s success all on their own. With that here are the top five likeliest Habs to capture NHL awards in 2023-24 for your bedtime-reading pleasure:
5. Martin St. Louis (Jack Adams Award)
One name you won’t find on this list is general manager Kent Hughes… well, at least not any argument to the effect he should be in line for the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award. However, that’s not because Hughes is bad at this job.
It’s more so because, if the Canadiens do make the playoffs, it will run counter to Hughes’ all-but explicitly expressed goal to continue on with the rebuild. Of course, he’s been improving the team to the point that the Habs remaining in competition for a playoff spot by the trade deadline isn’t totally improbable. However, if you look at the trades the Canadiens have made this offseason and their lack of free-agent signings, his priorities are fairly clear.
The logical goal is for the Canadiens to improve in the standings, but fairly modestly. Hughes isn’t exactly swinging for the fences right now, nor should he. By that same token, no one can rationally give him the credit should the Habs make the playoffs, because, by all appearances, he hasn’t given head coach Martin St. Louis the horses to get that far.
So, on the incredibly off chance the Canadiens reach the postseason, St. Louis should get all the recognition instead, in which case he should be a relative shoo-in for the Jack Adams Award. Again, to be clear, no one’s counting on this being the case. That’s why St. Louis only takes the No. 5 spot. However, on the other hand, stranger things have been known to happen, with the Habs having posted incredible single-season turnarounds before.
4. Mike Matheson (James Norris Memorial Trophy)
One of the biggest reasons it’s hard to envision the Canadiens making the playoffs is due to the sheer number of teams above them in the standings. Sure, the Habs have improved, but they also finished second from last in the Eastern Conference. The six teams above them who missed playoffs are officially closer than they are to making them. At least seven in all are going to have to do worse than they did in 2022-23 just for the Habs to have a shot.
Think about that.
The same argument kind of holds true as to why Mike Matheson is a long shot at best to capture the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the league’s best defenseman. There are just so many top defensemen above him in terms of skill level, it would be a minor miracle for him to so much as receive the first Habs votes for the award since Jeff Petry in 2021.
Nevertheless, Matheson is coming off a career-best season, during which he scored 34 points in 48 games. He’s the Canadiens’ best offensive defenseman on paper by a mile. If he stays healthy and maintains the same scoring pace, he’d score 58.
That’s maybe not in the same stratosphere of someone like say, Nashville Predators defenseman Roman Josi, who scored 96 in 2021-22. However, it’s very much in the same stratosphere of Josi circa 2020-21, when the Preds captain actually scored at a lower pace than Matheson did last season (and earned one less vote than Petry).
That’s the good news. The not-so-good is Josi didn’t even win the 2022 Norris. Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche did. Furthermore, then-San Jose Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson put together an even more statistically incredible 2022-23 to capture the most recent award, when he scored 101 points, the most for a defenseman since 1991-92 (Brian Leetch).
On the “plus” side though, the Sharks didn’t make the playoffs last season. So, there is still hope Matheson can break out to an even greater degree this season on a sub-standard Canadiens team, even if it’s just a sliver. Sometimes, great things happen when there isn’t even a sliver to start.
3. Sean Farrell (Calder Memorial Trophy)
For example, there’s every reason to believe rookie Sean Farrell won’t start the season with the Canadiens. He could obviously surprise everyone and make the team out of training camp, but, with the logjam up front, he’d have to hypothetically steal a job from someone like Juraj Slafkovsky, who’s still waiver-exempt (just like Farrell).
Now Slafkovsky could quasi-realistically be sent down to the American Hockey League, after scoring just 10 points in 39 games during his rookie season in 2022-23. What’s truly a sobering thought is, if any Canadiens player had a chance to bring home the team’s first Calder Memorial Trophy since 1972 (Ken Dryden), it might have been him, after having been selected first overall in 2022.
So, it’s not as much a case of Farrell being in line to win rookie-of-the-year honors as him being the team’s best or more accurately only shot to win. After the team iced so many rookies last season, Farrell’s the only one who’s still eligible for the Calder, at least the only one whose top-end skills align with those of a player one would expect to take home the trophy.
Even so, as alluded to earlier, the deck is stacked against Farrell and not just due to the make-up of the Canadiens. Look across the league, hell, just to the Chicago Blackhawks and Connor Bedard, this past NHL Entry Draft’s first pick who’s the hands-down favorite to win. Still, there are no guarantees Bedard lives up to the hype, especially not in his rookie season, after it took New Jersey Devils forward Jack Hughes a few to get going.
If nothing else, Farrell should be a focal point of interest for Canadiens fans. He probably won’t stand out if he even does stay with the Habs. However, is a repeat of Rafael Harvey-Pinard’s 14-goal rookie outburst last season (in just 34 games after the Habs were forced to call him up) so crazy? It shouldn’t be due to Farrell’s higher upside. Keep that in mind.
2. Cole Caufield (Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy)
Truth be told, Cole Caufield was probably the closest a Canadiens player actually came to capturing the Calder for the 2021-22 season (since 1972), at least on paper. He obviously stumbled out of the starting gate, with one goal and seven assists in his first 30 games, before St. Louis replaced Dominique Ducharme behind the bench.
It’s what happened after the switch that is especially noteworthy for this piece’s purposes. Caufield scored 22 goals in his last 37 games that season (finishing with 43 points overall). To start 2022-23, he then scored another 26 in his first 44. That left him with 48 goals in 81 games under St. Louis, putting him within striking distance of 50 in 82.
Obviously, things didn’t turn out that way. Caufield went scoreless in the following two games, before getting shut down with a shoulder injury, but, if he stays healthy, a 50-goal campaign in 2023-24 is at least a possibility. He’d admittedly still have a ways to go to reach the 64 Connor McDavid scored to lead the league last season, but there is objectively no reason why Caufield can’t turn into a consistent elite scoring threat, starting this season.
Not for nothing but, should he develop into that elite scoring threat, he’d also probably have to receive consideration for the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy too, with just two penalties in minutes last season (albeit in the aforementioned 46 games). Only Jesse Ylonen had fewer among Canadiens regulars (0 in 37 games), but Caufield gets the edge for obvious reasons, even if it would all be more of an afterthought.
1. Sean Monahan (Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy)
In all honesty, Canadiens fans may not pay all that much attention to the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy either. However, it is the award Canadiens have won the most since the turn of the century (Carey Price in 2021-22, Max Pacioretty in 2011-12 and Saku Koivu in 2001-02).
Sean Monahan gives them a shot at a fourth, although to be fair it’s about as individual of an award as possible, exemplifying the “qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey.” In other words, it’s generally given to players who manage to come back from debilitating injuries.
Now, the Canadiens far from suffer from a shortage of potential candidates who have suffered injuries in the recent past. However, the description nevertheless fits Monahan to a T, after he underwent several hip surgeries before first joining the Habs. Then, finally healthy for the first time in a long time, he went down early last December after having been playing on a broken foot and then sustaining a surgery-requiring torn groin as a result.
Monahan surprisingly re-signed with the Canadiens for one season this past summer. The amount was arguably more eye-catching, though: $1.985 million. That’s because the two sides added in a $15,000 bonus to get to an even $2 million, if he plays 26 games, one more than he did all of last season.
Now, Price won his Masterton after coming back from injury in 2022 to play five games. So, in a vacuum, the games-played amount isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. It’s more so the desire Monahan displays to get back to the player he knows he’s capable of being, the player he showed he’s capable of being through 25 games last season, when he provided impressive secondary scoring and veteran leadership down the middle for the Canadiens. It’s also what makes more the best story, if everyone is being honest.
So, if Monahan plays those 26 games and is in the lineup to end 2023-24, he’ll get that recognition in some form. A Masterton nomination on the part of the Canadiens would honestly be the least you should objectively expect. An all-out win? It would definitely be in the cards too, even if it’s one of the few big ones Habs fans get to celebrate next season. Ultimately, just a general return to health for the team as a whole would make for a successful season in some circles. Any awards to that or any effect would just be gravy.