Allen actually "stole" pretty much every win he had as a Hab.
Interesting. Not the way I'd describe his play with the Habs over the past 2 seasons... Especially relative to Monty's performance behind the same roster.
Analytics is very useful as a predictive tool, how useful it is is a different story (and which data is most useful). I don't need analytics to know that Montreal got amazing goaltending in a ridiculous number of their wins and that I'm not expecting that to be as good going forward.
Agree to disagree here.
And we have a lot of evidence that for the vast majority of players, their peak is hit at 24/25.
Please do share.
In particular controlled for players who play as many or more games after age 24/25.
At least offensively. Defensively is another story, but I'm not interested in setting exceptions of improvement on players that have already demonstrated they can be contributors on a contender. If Suzuki remains at the level of a 70-80 point two-way center and Montembault remains at the level of well above average platoon goalie, I will be more than satisfied. I want to see Caufield mesh his improved all around play from last season with his goal scoring from 2021 and 2022-2023. I also want to see health and growth from the other names mentioned who still have rawness to their game.
All fair.
Assuming those "gates", I'd still comfortably have Montreal in gate 1. If for no other reason that I can't justify placing them ahead of any team in the East and would only put a couple of teams in the same tier.
Quite clearly we have different assessments of our roster strength at this time. Will be interesting to revisit a year from now...
Only Columbus finished behind Montreal and when it comes to young NHLers/prospects expected to graduate, they can go blow for blow with Montreal and then some, and have better veteran support.
Gaudreau, Monahan, Werenski & Jenner are certainly better vets than we have in place. Perhaps a toss up in the U25 group, though I'd argue our group is deeper and better today than their group.
The continuity & culture aspects weigh heavily in our favor. Evanson starts today and remains to be seen how quickly he's able to get them rowing in the right direction.
Of the teams who finished ahead of Montreal, there's a mix of teams who are further along with their rebuilds (Buffalo/Ottawa/Detroit/NJ), teams still firmly in the win now with a better established core, and the Flyers. Absent putting on rose coloured glasses, It wouldn't be a shock to see Montreal finish in "gate 2", but there are enough teams that I have ahead of Montreal that I'm not expecting it.
Fair enough.
I agree that Buffalo & Ottawa "should" be better, on paper. Same with Utah in the West.
I think Anh, SJ & Chicago will be at the bottom of the standings this year, the West again being represented heavier at the bottom.
Calgary, Philly, Seattle, CBJ, Wash & Pitt are the teams I think we'll be dancing with all year.
If, and it's a big "if" we stay healthy, I see us staying ahead of most of these teams and battling fiercely with Ott, Buff, NYI & Detroit for the last WC spot (Fla, Boston, TB, Toronto, NYR, NJ, Carolina being the 7 likely locks).
But, thats why they play the games!
