Last night Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price cleaned up the NHL Awards by winning both the Hart and Vezina Trophies, the first goalie to do that since Jose Theodore did it for the Canadiens in 2002 which is surprising. Dominik Hasek did it for us in 1997 and 1998. Price also won the Ted Lindsay Award for MVP voted on by the players of the NHL (first goalie to win the Lindsay since Hasek) and the William Jennings Trophy for fewest goals allowed during the regular season (189). Price clearly is the MVP of the league because he carries the Canadiens and carried them to the division title and 50 wins and 110 points.
Price has led the Canadiens to back-to-back 100 point seasons and three in a row if the lockout shortened 2012-13 season went 82 games as they had 63 points in 48 games (107 points over 82 games) and won two division titles in those three seasons. Problem has not been the regular season as Price has been a huge part of their success the past three seasons. The problem has been in the playoffs where they lost in the second round this past season to the Tampa Bay Lightning, who I thought were much better than Montreal despite finishing behind them in the standings.
I thought Tampa was the best team in the East this season because of all their young star players that they drafted at the top of the draft (along with a few select players found elsewhere in the draft). Hopefully the Sabres will emulate that success with their top draft picks, namely Jack Eichel. Ok, Montreal did lose in six games to the Rangers in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2014, but the Rangers, who as great if not better goalie, had much better skilled players than Montreal and beat them. The Canadiens were upset in the first round to the seventh seeded Ottawa Senators in 2013.
The problem with the Canadiens is that they lack a lot of skilled forwards that can score on a consistent basis and need a couple of top-3 draft pick forwards that can be stars (as do a lot of teams). That's what wins in the NHL, top-3 picks. Max Pacioretty is their best forward as he scored 37 goals and 67 points. Tomas Plekanec is pretty good as is Brendan Gallagher. Alex Galchenyuk has not lived up to the hype since being drafted 3rd overall three years ago. He did have his first 20-goal season of his career, but has been moved from center to wing as he has not yet shown he can be a center. Their other source of offense comes from P.K. Subban, who scored 60 points and is usually up there with Erik Karlsson for most points scored by a defenseman.
Despite allowing the fewest goals (thanks to Price and Subban), the Canadiens were only 18th in goals scored and even worse, they were just 23rd in Corsi. You don't win Stanley Cups with that bad of a Corsi rating as teams that win the Cup rank near or at the top. They don't have enough skilled players to have a great Corsi nor maybe they're coach isn't good at it or maybe they rely way too much on Price and Subban. I think the answer is all of the above. Another reason I thought the Canadiens weren't that great of a team was because they struggled to beat bad teams, namely the Buffalo Sabres. The 30th place Sabres went 3-0-1 against them this season. That's awful.
The Canadiens really need to build a better team in front of Price. Sadly, they are in no position to be able to tank and finish near or at the bottom of the league and get high picks as they are usually very good in the regular season. Problem is they won't ever win the Cup nor contend for it in their current model. Yes they'll have 100-point seasons. Yes they'll have division titles. Yes they'll even win a playoff series or even get to a conference finals on the strength of Price. But they'll never win the Cup or even seriously contend in this form.
This is why I would hate to be the Canadiens right now because they're in no man's land. Boston, Philadelphia, and New Jersey are probably worse off than Montreal because Montreal will have great regular seasons. But the Canadiens are nowhere close to getting elite level forwards that you need to win the Cup or contend on a regular basis. They have the elite goalie and elite defenseman to win the Cup but not the forwards which is what you need to win the Cup as Cup winners have several top-3 picks in the draft.
Montreal is probably never going to tank or bottom out anytime soon and will continue to rely on Price to win them and bail them out of games. They'll have their great regular seasons but nothing to show for it. This reminds me of the Sabres teams from a few years ago with Ryan Miller where they won the division and made the playoffs but lost in the first round because they didn't have elite forwards. That's something I never want to be in ever again where we build around a goalie and can't win without that guy in net. I don't ever want that nor do I wish that on my enemies.
Thankfully, the Sabres won't have to rely on elite goalies as their best player is not a goalie. Yes we need a goalie but I want the elite level forwards and find the goalie instead of the other way around. One team that knows from experience how that never works is the Buffalo Sabres.
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