The Montreal Canadiens are set to face off against the Toronto Maple Leafs for the 2023-24 NHL season opener Wednesday night, but what can Habs fans expect this coming season?
The Original Six matchup will kick-start a highly anticipated new period for the storied hockey club, which is in the midst of a rebuild.
Global Montreal hockey analyst Brian Wilde said in an interview Wednesday he thinks Toronto will benefit from the advantage of a home opener. Bolstered by an enthusiastic attitude and the pressure to outplay their old rivals, the Leafs will most likely take the win.
But he also predicts Montreal is in for their own victory when they hit the ice at the Bell Centre and will “win quite handily” against the Chicago Blackhawks this weekend.
“It will be the home opener crowd. It will be the unveiling of a new great star in Connor Bedard. And then the Canadiens are going to take all that fun away from the Hawks by destroying them,” Wilde said.
Fans have a lot to look forward to this season, Wilde says, and the Canadiens will be “considerably better” for three reasons. Talented forward Alex Newhook will make his debut with the team and a blue line of four rookies now have a year of experience under their belts.
But the third and most important factor to a better year ahead? Wilde points to a fresh start after a plethora of injuries rocked the Habs last season and sidelined key players like Cole Caufield and Mike Matheson.
“If this game stays just a little bit more healthy — and it’s hard to imagine that they could duplicate maybe one of the most injury-riddled seasons in the team’s history — then they should be considerably better, I think,” Wilde said.
Aside from that, Wilde says the Canadiens are slowly making nice improvements. The management team is intelligent, doing a good and patient job of ensuring the club has “a lot of talent that is already on the team and a lot of talent to come.” The 19-year-old defenceman Lane Hutson, who was drafted 62nd overall by the Canadiens in the NHL’s 2022 entry draft, could be a “game changer.”
“This happened slowly, though. The cupboard is bare and they’re filling it up slowly,” Wilde said of the rebuild. “And I think Habs fans are actually optimistic.
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“I think the people that are kind of missing the forest for the trees are those experts around the league that aren’t seeing the really nice developments that the management team is making.”
Habs fans should keep an eye on centre Kirby Dach, who had a breakout season last year. His trajectory could be “outstanding,” according to Wilde.
“He’s a puck winner. He can win the zone offensively. He has the ability to take the puck out of the zone defensively and everyone he plays with plays their best hockey,” Wilde explained.
But when it comes to building a stacked and talented team, what is Montreal missing? An elite scorer, according to Wilde.
“The Canadiens only got 232 goals last year and I like to break things down sometimes, even the very basics of math. And if you want to be a competitive, excellent hockey team, you got to be around 285,” he said. “So the team needs to find about 50, 55, 60 goals to be really competitive and to find those goals, they’re going to need an elite talent.
“So they need to find that elite talent before they going to rise up to ever hope to win the Stanley Cup, or they’re just going to end up back in the mushy middle where they’ve been for since 1993.”
Meanwhile, star goaltender Carey Price officially moved out of Quebec over the summer. A lingering knee injury has kept him off the ice, but don’t expect a retirement announcement any time soon.
“You’ll never see that he’s done until the contract is done because he’s on long-term injured reserve,” Wilde said.
“And it’s a really odd thing that happens in the National Hockey League that when you have a long-term injury that you’re not going to heal from and you’re effectively not an active participant anymore like Carey Price is, you still can’t announce your retirement because if you do that, then they stop paying you.”
Price will “continue to live out West and go hunting and fishing and do the things he loves and enjoy his $10.5 million per year until that contract finally runs out,” Wilde said.
“And then he will announce his retirement.”
Looking forward to Wednesday night’s game? Be sure to check out Global Montreal for Brian Wilde’s post-game analysis called Call of the Wilde.
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