Five Great Players the Montreal Canadiens Are Grateful for in 2010

The Montreal Canadiens are a team not burdened with a huge number of talented hockey players this year.

These are the five talents that Les Habitants will build around going forward into the 2010-11 season. It's a good group to start with.

1. Jaroslav Halak

Jaroslav Halak, Montreal's 25-year-old goalie, has established himself as a winner who thrives in a high-shot environment.

This season the restricted free agent was fourth in save percentage (.924) among goalies who played at least a third of their team's minutes. He had the ninth best goals against average (2.40) in the same group.

He faced the eighth most shots against per game and made the fifth most saves per game. He finished seventh in the league with five shutouts.

Throw in his playoff performance and Halak looks like a goalie a team can build around.

The RFA is likely to receive starting goalie money and a long-term contract from the Montreal Canadiens this offseason.

2. Mike Cammalleri

The 28 year old from Richmond Hill was the Canadiens' most expensive offseason acquisition at $6 million a year for four more years.

He missed 17 games due to injury and managed what might be called a disappointing 26 goals and 50 points in the 65 games he played in.

Cammalleri, though, is a first-rate Canadian-born offensive talent. The quick, crafty sniper is likely to lead the team in scoring for the next four years, as his 19 points and 13 goals have led the team so far in the playoffs.

He's an exciting talent to build the offense around and is probably the best Canadian offensive talent on the team since Vincent Damphousse and Mark Recchi in the late '90s. That's a long time for the flying Frenchmen to go without a first-rate offensive star in his prime.

3. Carey Price

There is a dearth of high quality goalies in the NHL. The Canadiens are lucky enough to have two highly talented, highly regarded young keepers as restricted free agents.

Big Carey Price was Bob Gainey's fifth overall pick in 2005 and will only be 23 in August.

The youngster managed a credible .912 save percentage this year, which puts him in the middle of the pack of starting NHL goalies. He's just behind Chris Mason of St. Louis, just ahead of Pekka Rinne of Nashville, and tied with Antti Niemi of Chicago.

However, while Niemi manages his save percentage in front of a team that gives up the fewest shots on goal in the league, (Chicago with 25.1), Price is playing behind a Montreal defense that allows a league fifth worst 32.1 shots per game.

Playing in a more controlled defensive environment, for instance in Chicago or Philadelphia, he might be expected to bloom—especially because at 23 he hopefully still has years of improvement before him.

Here's an asset Montreal will need to sign and probably trade for as much as they can manage to extract. Hopefully they'll trade him to a Western team and not have him come back to kill them year after year.

4. PK Subban

PK Subban looks to be a high risk, medium reward offensive defenseman.

At 21, Subban has managed to play over 20 minutes a game for the Canadiens in the playoffs. He brings a verve to the defense that the 35-year-olds in the lineup can't be expected to match.

This youngster looks right at home in the lineup and should be a fixture on the power play for years to come.

Now the Habs just need to find that big, young, strong-skating, shutdown defenseman to pair with him and cover for him when he gets caught in the offensive zone.

5. Andrei Markov

Markov has been the Canadiens' best defenseman since the lockout. He's good for three-quarters of a point a game and leads the team in minutes played when healthy.

At 31 he's the most senior of the high quality players Montreal has in its lineup and has another year to go on his contract. Another offensive defenseman, he also has a penchant for making risky plays at the blue line, which can lead to turnovers.

Markov suffered an Achilles tendon injury in the first game of the season that kept him out of the lineup for 12 weeks. He returned to lead Montreal's defense and managed 34 points in 45 games this year.

In the first game of the Habs' second round series against Pittsburgh, he suffered a tear in the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. This devastating injury often takes as much as six months to recover from. He's projected to return in November of 2010.

Markov is the leader of a relatively weak Montreal defense. If he can't play, or if these two injuries have impaired his skating ability, the Canadiens will have a huge hole on defense to fill.

Not Unfortunately Tomas Plekanec

Tomas Plekanec has been an offensive contributor in Montreal almost from the instant he came up to the big club from Hamilton.

He had a breakout year at age 25, when he managed 69 points in 81 games while the Canadiens won the Northeast division two years ago. He's effectively equaled that total this year with 70 points in 82 games.

Unfortunately for Montreal, Plekanec is one of the best offensively talented UFA centers currently on the market. A league starved for talent at center is likely to pay too much for his services.

It's too bad. Tomas is one of my favourite Canadien players. Unlike Chris Higgins and Andrei Kostitsyn, he has been able to replicate the numbers he generated in 2007-08. He's only 27, and he will be missed.