What should Montreal Canadiens fans expect from their team in 2016-2017? It’s the fifth year under Michel Therrien’s current regime, and here is how that tenure has played out so far.
The team
| Season | GP | Shots | Sh/g | Goals | Sh% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | 82 | 2498 | 30.46 | 216 | 8.65% |
| 2014-15 | 82 | 2333 | 28.45 | 213 | 9.13% |
| 2013-14 | 82 | 2326 | 28.37 | 208 | 8.94% |
| 2012-13 | 48 | 1468 | 30.58 | 146 | 9.95% |
| Average | 29.34 | 9.08% |
Last year, the Habs had their second-best season in terms of shot generation rate, but their worst in terms of shooting percentage. Early in the season, Michel Therrien’s system was unrecognizable. Even if the final results ultimately showed failure, the process was interesting. Despite leading in terms of total shots in a season, they failed to score; maybe due a lack of talent, injuries, the GM’s gamble on players like Semin and Kassian, a lack of leadership, power-play failure, El Niño, and so on.
With a healthy roster, I would expect the team to generate as many shots, rounding it up to 2500 shots for the whole season (or 30.49 shots per game). Since it’s hard to predict the injuries, let’s again assume a full lineup for the season.
The average shooting percentage under Therrien is 9.08%. Because the team will shoot a lot this year, and goalies tend to be better with a bigger number of shots against them, I don’t expect their shooting percentage this year to be significantly better than their average. To remain conservative, I would round it down to 9%.
That would result in 225 goals for the season. It’s fairly close to the totals I got from predicting the individual goal and points totals of the players.
If you compare with last season’s league goal totals, it would place the Canadiens no better than 12th in goals for. The Habs would still need the help of their goalie to become a top contender if these projections are realized.
So, for the 2016-17 season, the projected offensive totals for the team are as follows:
| Season | GP | Shots | Sh/g | Goals | Sh% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | 82 | 2500 | 30.49 | 225 | 9.00% |
The players
This off-season saw major roster change from what the team looked like last season.
Semin → Radulov: I predicted 20 goals from Semin last season. Let’s say that I’m more conservative this year.
Weise → Shaw: It should be nearly equivalent production, even though Weise may have had his career season last year.
Eller → Lehkonen: It’s only his rookie season, but he’s a more offensive-minded player, the production from Lehkonen should be about the same as Eller produced.
Fleischmann → Carr: Carr will be more consistent than last year’s professtional tryout signee, but will not double Fleischmann’s contributions.
Subban → Weber: 2015-16 was a terrible year for Subban in terms of goals. Weber will see a drop in offence playing for Therrien instead of Laviolette, but not as low as Subban’s goal total last year.
Here are my projections of the offensive numbers for the players this season:
| Player | Goals | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Max Pacioretty (C) | 30 | 55 |
| Alex Galchenyuk | 25 | 60 |
| Brendan Gallagher (A) | 28 | 56 |
| Artturi Lehkonen | 14 | 28 |
| Tomas Plekanec (A) | 17 | 52 |
| Alexander Radulov | 18 | 55 |
| Daniel Carr | 15 | 25 |
| David Desharnais | 10 | 30 |
| Andrew Shaw | 14 | 35 |
| Torrey Mitchell | 8 | 14 |
| Phillip Danault | 5 | 12 |
| Paul Byron | 7 | 12 |
| Sven Andrighetto | 13 | 25 |
| Brian Flynn | 6 | 10 |
| Nathan Beaulieu | 5 | 30 |
| Shea Weber (A) | 10 | 40 |
| Andrei Markov (A) | 7 | 40 |
| Jeff Petry | 7 | 36 |
| Alexei Emelin | 3 | 10 |
| Greg Pateryn | 5 | 16 |
| Zach Redmond | 4 | 14 |
| Mikhail Sergachev | 5 | 25 |
| Michael McCarron | 8 | 14 |
| Mark Barberio | 4 | 22 |
| Charles Hudon | 12 | 30 |
| Jacob de la Rose | 2 | 10 |
| Total | 228 | 606 |
In italics are call-up players or extra forwards.
Kirk Muller might blow up all these expectations with an efficient power play. It might work out to another eight to 10 goals. The Habs would jump from the 12th to the sixth place in goals scored in that case.
What do you expect from the 2016-17 season?
