The Number That Should Follow Montreal Into Every Offseason Conversation Is 2.8

Start with the goal rate, not the extension. Ivan Demidov's eight-year commitment is the headline the organization wanted written, and it deserves to be written—a rookie who posted 10 goals and 32 assists across 50 games at that age is exactly the kind of player you lock up before the rest of the league fully understands what you have. But the number that actually defines Montreal's offseason problem isn't in Demidov's contract. It's 2.8. Goals per game over the final 10 regular-season contests. After averaging 3.9 over the prior 20, the Canadiens' offense fell off a cliff precisely when the stakes climbed highest—a drop of 1.1 goals per game that didn't reverse itself when the playoffs arrived.

Here is why that number matters more than the vibe around this roster: 3.9 goals per game is a team that can beat anyone on a given night. 2.8 is a team that loses close series. The gap between those two figures isn't random variance across a small sample—it's a pattern that showed up when opponents had full scouting reports, when coaching adjustments compounded across multiple games, when the margin for error shrank. Young teams get exposed in exactly that sequence, and Montreal's youth core, for all its genuine talent, could not hold its production rate when the environment got harder. That's not an indictment of the rebuild. It's a diagnostic reading of where the rebuild actually is.

The depth chart makes the fragility legible. Nick Suzuki finished at 54 points and led the team at 1.1 points per game—a legitimate first-line center by any measure. Cole Caufield posted 23 goals and 47 points. Demidov's 42 points in his first NHL season is a legitimately impressive floor. Those three, plus Lane Hutson's 49-point rookie campaign from the blue line, form a real core. But below that tier, the numbers thin out fast. Oliver Kapanen and Zack Bolduc—the players who need to be reliable secondary contributors in a seven-game series—combined for fewer than 50 points on the season, and Bolduc finished at minus-9. When the top of the lineup gets shut down in the playoffs, which is what good defensive teams do, Montreal had no second wave to answer with. The 2.8 figure is what happens when your depth can't compensate for a suppressed first line.

The Kirby Dach re-signing on a one-year, $3.6 million deal is a reasonable patch for the center depth, and the Brett Berard acquisition adds a forward option. But neither move addresses the structural issue at its root. My read is that the more urgent problem heading into 2026-27 isn't actually on the forward side—it's on the blue line, where the production gap between Hutson and everyone else is stark. Hutson's 41 percent share of defensive production, per the depth chart, against Mike Matheson's 10 percent as the nominal second option, is not a depth chart. It's a one-man show with a supporting cast. When Hutson's minutes get matched by an opponent's top line in a playoff series, Montreal needs a second defenseman who can drive play. Right now, that player doesn't appear to exist on the roster.

None of this is an argument against the youth movement. It's an argument for reading the youth movement honestly. Demidov at 42 points as a rookie, Hutson at 49 from the back end, Caufield at 23 goals—these are the building blocks of a genuine contender, and the 48-34 final record reflects a team that has already arrived at relevance faster than most rebuilds manage. But the 2.8 is the number that tells you the ceiling question hasn't been answered yet. Extensions buy time and signal commitment. They don't retroactively solve a late-season offensive collapse. Until this roster proves it can sustain its production rate when the games get harder, the Demidov signing is a bet on potential, and the 2.8 is the reminder of exactly how much potential still needs to convert.