The Montreal Canadiens’ best player is…
It’s summertime again in Montreal – greetings to my old boss MS – and 1001 rankings, charts, top20s, fantasies and the like are flying by. Reading all these top-something about the Canadiens has made me realize something: it’s hard to identify who’s the best player on the current team, whether you look by position or overall. Innet, it’s simple: Samuel Montembeault is currently the best goaltender in the organization. He was the starting goaltender in 2024-25 and will be again in 2025-26. He could even represent Canada once again on the international stage, this time at the Olympic Games. At $3.15 million a year, Montembeault is a real bargain for the Habs. Up front, we all seem to be able to come to a consensus: Nick Suzuki, the team’s captain and first center, is probably the team’s best forward.Power play, shorthanded, 5 v.,3 v., 3 v., shotgun.5, 3 v. 3, shootout… Suzuki is second to none for the Habs.Remember that he finished at the top of the team’s scoring charts last season, 19 points ahead of his closest pursuer.
Still, in the playoffs, Suzuki collected just two points in five games, also posting a minus-5 cumulative differential. What’s more, many fans believe that one day (not so far off), Kirby Dach Ivan Demidov, Cole Caufield or Juraj Slafkovsky could surpass Suzuki as the organization’s best forward. Where all the debate begins is on the blue line. Who’s the best defenseman in the organization right now? Noah Dobson or Lane Hutson? We all agree that Kaiden Guhle is currently third, ahead of Mike Matheson and Alexandre Carrier.And that David Reinbacher is pushing behind…[content-ads]Let’s get back to Hutson and Dobson.
Dobson scored 70 points in 2023-24, has nearly 400 regular games of experience in the show, possesses quite an offensive sense of play, is 6’4, right-handed and has greatly improved his defensive game.
He’ll also be making an average salary of $9.5 million next season. Except that he’s just regressed to 39 points in 2024-25… and he still hasn’t scored a playoff goal in 31 playoff games. Hutson, meanwhile, has just won the Calder Trophy for the NHL’s top rookie. He has 68 points in 84 regular games and five assists in as many playoff games since his NHL debut. And he’s never missed a game despite his small stature…What’s more, he’s nowhere near as bad in his own territory as some would have us believe…Okay, it’s not a very large sample, but I feel like writing it this morning: Lane Hutson is a better defenseman than Noah Dobson. Even if he is smaller, left-handed and a new pro.What Hutson can do on the ice is unique. Except that, in the playoffs, the big players always have the advantage [content-ads]OK, it’s decided: in my eyes, Hutson is the Habs’ best defenseman.
Does he rank ahead of Nick Suzuki as the team’s best player, though?Um… No. It’s impossible not to put Suzuki in that position. But I really feel that in two years’ time, that hierarchy will have taken over. And I also have the impression that many of you will disagree with me. No stress!