Montreal Canadiens

What the Quant Says

221 goals, 27th in the league, off the 22nd-best expected-goal rate at even strength (2.462 per 60). The output matched the input, which is the honest and unhelpful summary.

Cole Caufield's 23 goals in 67 games at 21 and Nick Suzuki's 61 points at 20:31 a night are the two producing assets, and both did it with the club's chance share under 47 per cent.

Brendan Gallagher shot 4.9 per cent — the 20th-lowest of 393 forwards — on the 89th percentile of shot volume from the 84th percentile of locations. That is the one genuine bounce-back candidate on the roster.

What the Scout Says

Cole Caufield is the asset. Twenty-three goals in sixty-seven games at 21, at 5-8 and 175 pounds, on the 89th percentile of shot volume — and the 9th-most ground covered of the 365 forwards the tracking covers, at only the 26th percentile for top speed. A small player who never stops moving, which is the shape this book keeps finding under the good small ones.

Nick Suzuki scored 61 points at 20:31 a night from the 10th-percentile offensive-zone start, with an even-strength rate at only the 46th. Both halves of that are true.

Rem Pitlick's profile is the strangest in the edition: the 6th-fewest shots per 60 of 393 forwards, the 3rd-largest slot share, the 4th-shortest median distance, the 4th-highest shooting percentage, from the 4th-hardest deployment. Fifteen goals on sixty-five shots, and none of that shape survives contact with a full season.

Mike Hoffman has the 6th-smallest slot share and the 3rd-longest median shot distance of 393 forwards. He shoots from further out than almost anyone in hockey on a 78th-percentile shot, and his even-strength ice was the worst on the club.

What the Quant Says

319 goals against, the most in the league, off the 28th-ranked expected-goals-against rate at even strength (2.874 per 60).

The defence was bad and the crease made it worse: the club conceded thirteen more than the model expected on top of a rate that was already fifth-worst.

David Savard played 20:47 a night at the 12th percentile for chance share and the 5th for attempts. The pairing with Ben Chiarot read 40.5 per cent across 574 attempts, the worst figure in the chapter.

Four of the men who played it — Jeff Petry, Alexander Romanov, Brett Kulak and Kale Clague — have gone.

What the Scout Says

David Savard takes a larger share of his shots from the slot than any of the 202 qualified defencemen — 27.6 per cent, off the 2nd-shortest median — and takes almost none of them. He also has the 4th-fewest takeaways and the 96th percentile of giveaways, at 20:47 a night on the club that conceded 319.

Chris Wideman gave the puck away 3.59 times per 60, the 3rd-most of 202, and his penalty net is the 6th-worst. Twenty-seven points from a 5-10 third-pair defenceman is genuinely useful and 44 per cent of it was the power play.

Mike Matheson arrives from Pittsburgh with the 2nd-most ground covered and the 3rd-most sprints of all 192 qualified defencemen, at the 94th percentile for top speed and the 95th for takeaways. A defence corps whose regulars sat at the 15th, 7th and 29th percentiles for mobility has added the best skater at the position in this batch.

Joel Edmundson played twenty-four games at the hardest deployment on the roster. The group needs him for seventy and the record cannot say whether it gets them.

What the Quant Says

23rd in the league at minus-13 goals saved below expectation — and six goaltenders dressed.

Jake Allen's .9047 ranked 35th of the 53 who played twenty-five games; Samuel Montembeault's .8915 ranked 50th. Cayden Primeau went 1-7-1 at .8675 in twelve, and Carey Price played five before going off the roster.

Montembeault's three NHL seasons read .8936, .8904 and .8915 — a level rather than a variance, and he took the largest share of the crease.

What the Scout Says

Samuel Montembeault's three NHL seasons read .8936, .8904 and .8915. A save percentage that repeats to within three thousandths across three separate years is a level, not variance, and he took the largest share of the crease at 38 games.

Jake Allen's career .9111 across 9,621 shots is the one substantial sample here, and last season's .9047 sits sixty-four points under it. Nine wins in thirty-five starts.

Cayden Primeau has 18 NHL games at .8737 on 467 shots — far too small to read in either direction, and a 4.62 goals-against is the worst figure in the chapter.

Carey Price played five games and has gone off the roster. Six goaltenders dressed for one club, and the group still rated 23rd after adjusting for the shots it faced.

What the Quant Says

27th in the league at 5.473 expected goals per 60, over 4:53 a night.

Mike Hoffman took 37 per cent of his points here and Chris Wideman 44 per cent, the 93rd and 96th percentiles at their positions. A unit that finishes 27th while two of its regulars depend on it that heavily is a structural problem rather than a personnel one.

Sean Monahan arrives having taken the largest power-play share of points of all 393 qualified forwards — 57 per cent — into a club that ranked 27th at it.

What the Scout Says

Chris Wideman took 44 per cent of his points here, the 96th percentile among defencemen, and Mike Hoffman 37 per cent, the 93rd among forwards. Both are specialists on a unit that finished 27th.

Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield took a third and thirty per cent respectively, off 3:05 and 2:51 a night. That is the version worth building on.

The arrival complicates it. Sean Monahan took 57 per cent of his points on the power play — the largest share of all 393 qualified forwards — and posted the 10th-lowest even-strength rate in the league doing it. A 27th-ranked unit has just acquired the man most dependent on one.

What the Quant Says

31st in the league at 7.289 expected goals against per 60, over 5:00 a night.

Second-worst in hockey, on a full five minutes a night. Jake Evans carried 1:56 of it, the 91st percentile among forwards, and his was the only Montreal ice that was not outscored.

Joel Armia's eleven career short-handed goals and 88th-percentile penalty ledger are the other asset here. Brendan Gallagher took the 96th percentile of penalties and Chris Wideman the 97th, which on the 31st-ranked kill is the cost that compounds.

What the Scout Says

Jake Evans killed 1:56 a night, the 91st percentile among forwards, on a unit that finished 31st — and his was the only Montreal ice that broke even at five-on-five, 39-38 against an expectation of 38.03-41.09. From the 207th pick of 2014.

Joel Armia's penalty ledger is the 88th percentile and eleven of his 68 career goals have come short-handed, which is a large share for a man with 396 games. Nick Suzuki took 1:30 a night.

The cost side is heavy. Brendan Gallagher took the 96th percentile of penalties per 60 and Chris Wideman the 97th, with the 6th-worst net of 202 defencemen, and Michael Pezzetta produced eighty-one penalty minutes in fifty-one games at 7:50 a night. A club killing five minutes a night at the second-worst rate in hockey is manufacturing much of its own workload.