State Your Case: Canadiens' chances of making playoffs

The Montreal Canadiens are playing some of their best hockey of the 2024-25 NHL season as they arrive at the midpoint.

The Canadiens (18-18-3) return from an eye-opening road trip to host the Vancouver Canucks (18-12-8) at Bell Centre on Monday (7:30 p.m. ET; RDS, Prime) in a game televised nationally across Canada.

This version of the Canadiens is almost unrecognizable from the one that entered December 8-12-3 and whispers that they might once against play a big role in the NHL Draft Lottery.

Instead, they arrive home after victories against four recent Stanley Cup champions during a six-game road trip (4-2-0).

They defeated the reigning champion Florida Panthers 4-0 on Dec. 28. The next night, they won 5-2 against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Stanley Cup winners in 2020 and 2021, and the 2022 Eastern Conference champions. On New Year's Eve, the Canadiens erased a two-goal deficit and won 3-2 against the Vegas Golden Knights, the 2023 Stanley Cup champions, and rallied again for a 2-1 shootout victory at the Colorado Avalanche, the 2022 champions who ended the Lightning's two-season run, on Saturday.

Was the success on the road trip a statement of Stanley Cup Playoff aspirations by a Montreal team that has finished last in the Atlantic Division in each of the past three seasons, or just a temporary run of good form for a team still building toward competitiveness?

That's the question tackled by columnist Nick Cotsonika and senior director of editorial Shawn P. Roarke in the latest edition of State Your Case.

Roarke: This is a different version of the Montreal Canadiens than the one that started this season the same way they started each of the past three. These Canadiens are confident and skilled. Coach Martin St. Louis put it best after they allowed an early goal to the high-scoring Avalanche and then shut the door. Few do that against the Avalanche, who have two of the League's top scorers in Mikko Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon. "There's a big difference between wanting to eat, because you have to eat, and being hungry," St. Louis said. "Right now, we've got a group that's hungry." And it's a group that isn't satisfied. Montreal has won seven of its past 10 games and is playing well offensively, in its own zone and in goal. Perhaps even more impressive than the four wins against the recent Cup champions is that it allowed five goals in those four games. That's the sign of a good team.

Cotsonika: I've got to admit that I didn't see this coming from the Canadiens, and I'm impressed after the way they looked early in the season. This has been a heck of a streak of good hockey against good opponents, but let's not get carried away just yet and raise expectations too high too fast in a market like Montreal, where the hype can spiral out of control in a hurry. Although the Canadiens are in the race for a wild card in the Eastern Conference, they're still in a clump of nine teams within five points fighting for two spots. The odds still favor them missing the playoffs, and I'd like to see more sustained success before I get excited.

Roarke: This team has the pillars needed for a potential playoff team. Sam Montembeault is a No. 1 goalie who has embraced the pressure of playing in the cauldron that is Montreal. Rookie Lane Hutson is already their best defenseman and will battle for the Calder Trophy. David Savard has been a monster for the past month, and Mike Matheson is playing 25:16 per game and plus-3 since Dec. 5. Up front, Cole Caufield is a goal-scoring machine with 21 goals in 39 games this season, his fourth straight with at least 20, and has 13 points (five goals, eight assists) in his past 14 games. Nick Suzuki, the 25-year-old captain, leads Montreal with 38 points (11 goals, 27 assists) in 39 games. Most importantly, the Canadiens have a gamebreaker in Patrik Laine, who thrives under pressure. He has eight goals in 13 games this season, each coming on the power play, so why can't the Canadiens be the team that escapes from the logjam Nick described? It says here they can!

Cotsonika: You've listed a lot of good things, Shawn. The Canadiens have made real progress. Can they be the team that escapes from the logjam? Yes, it's possible. But is it probable? I'm not ready to say that yet. Over their past nine games, the Canadiens have gone 7-2-0, but in this stretch, their 5-on-5 shooting plus save percentage is 102.8 percent, fifth in the NHL. Jake Evans has five goals in this stretch, tied with Laine for the team lead, but he's shooting 45.5 percent and has never scored more than 13 goals in a season (2021-22). Laine's an elite goal-scorer, but at 27.8 percent in this stretch he's well above his NHL career average of 14.9 percent. Rookie Emil Heineman has four goals in this stretch, shooting 26.7 percent. To me, that signals that this is a heater, and the Canadiens are highly likely to cool off. Meanwhile, Montreal is going from one gauntlet to another. The Canadiens (.500) play their next six games against teams with better records in terms of points percentage: the Canucks (.579), Washington Capitals (.705), Dallas Stars (.645), Utah Hockey Club (.526), Dallas again and the Toronto Maple Leafs (.659). Let's check back in at least a couple of weeks.