Projecting the 2024-25 Canadiens Opening Night Roster
With the Montreal Canadiens sliding down the standings towards another top-five pick, some attention has shifted to next season and its expectations. There’s a good chance that the team’s roster will look a bit different and feature some new and exciting names.
The Canadiens have lost five consecutive games and possess a record of 2-7-1 across their past 10 games. They currently sit at a season-low of six games below a .500 winning percentage, and now sit at the bottom of the Atlantic Division as the Ottawa Senators recently leapfrogged them. They sit 27th in the NHL (second-to-last in the Eastern Conference ahead of only the Columbus Blue Jackets), which means they hold the sixth-best odds at the first overall pick in the upcoming draft.
Setting Expectations for 2024-25
With missing the playoffs (for the fourth consecutive season since their unlikely run to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final) all but a foregone conclusion, many fans wonder when exactly the coaching staff, management, and players alike expect to compete for a spot in the postseason. The team seems to have stagnated from this season to last in terms of point totals, but has seen encouraging progression from building blocks of the future such as Juraj Slafkovsky, captain Nick Suzuki, and prospects such as Lane Hutson and Joshua Roy. Surely the team is hopeful to make a big jump from this season to the next.
Exactly what the 2024-25 Canadiens squad will look like is still undetermined. With the trade deadline quickly approaching, Kent Hughes and company will seek to potentially move out certain trade targets and acquire pieces to help streamline the rebuild. One thing is fairly certain about this team’s roster, and that is it will surely feature a bulk of young, up-and-coming players poised and ready to make an impact. The following is a glimpse at what the roster may look like on opening night of the 2024-25 NHL season.
