Canadiens’ Most Overrated Players for 2025-26

Montembeault did make the Canadian 4 Nations Face-Off team. He may not have seen any game action, but he was nevertheless deserving of the honour, despite any politically charged argument to the contrary. He further justified his selection by earning a .928 SV% in his first seven games immediately after the NHL schedule resumed. Of course, based on his overall stat line, you can probably guess how he fared statistically from that point on, as the Canadiens overused him down the stretch.

Ultimately, with goaltending having justifiably been seen as the country’s weak point, Montembeault hasn’t arrived as anything other than the aforementioned starter into which he’s developed. Until he develops more consistency and stamina, he simply has more to prove before he can truly be considered elite. Until then, “average” has to do. Thankfully, Montembeault shouldn’t have to be Carey Price to win it all. “Average” historically does just fine, at least when playing behind above-average teams.

2. Sammy Blais

When the Canadiens signed Sammy Blais as an unrestricted free agent this summer, two things became clear:

• General manager and ex-player agent Kent Hughes loves signing former clients.
• The Habs took to heart suggestions they needed to get bigger to find more success in the Stanley Cup Playoffs after getting beaten by Tom Wilson and the Washington Capitals in five games in Round 1.

While that narrative has arguably been overemphasized to a fault, with the Canadiens actually having outhit the Capitals in the series, there’s no mistaking Blais’ strength as a 6-foot-2 forward (210 pounds) who is known as “an aggressive forechecker who loves to hit.” It’s also easy to see him fitting in as a potential 13th forward, like Michael Pezzetta did in years past. The thing is, Pezzetta didn’t play any playoff games last season. And Blais didn’t play any NHL games (at all). So, take any narrative that Blais is a saviour of any kind with a huge grain of salt. There should be no guarantees he even makes the team out of training camp.

1. Josh Anderson

One reason the Canadiens don’t need Blais is Josh Anderson. The 6-foot-3 forward (226 pounds) has a well-earned reputation of throwing his weight around and a not-so-well-earned reputation of contributing significant secondary offense.

Whereas defenseman Arber Xhekaj gets credit for helping to turn the series against the Capitals around (or simply giving the Habs a chance to actually win) thanks to his physicality upon being inserted into the lineup in Game 3, Anderson also contributed heavily to that 6-3 win (to cut the deficit to 2-1). It just was by helping to contain Wilson, instead of through that aforementioned offense, which has kind of gotten overstated.

Like Montembeault, Anderson has made this list before. He got left off it heading into 2024-25 though, after having just suffered through a 20-point campaign. It almost suddenly become apparent Anderson simply wasn’t the top-six forward the team tried to transform him into ever since having acquired him before 2020-21. However, there shouldn’t have been anything sudden about it, based on the single 40-point season to his name (2018-19 with the Columbus Blue Jackets) and how he has never scored more than 32 since.

An admitted 20-goal threat if he’s deployed favourably alongside star talent, Anderson to his credit notched a respectable 15 last season. However, giving him too much credit for a bounce-back season would be a mistake, when:

• He only scored seven more points relative to his widely acknowledged as horrendous 2023-24 and
• He accomplished what he did only after the Canadiens seemed to acknowledge his actual niche as a bottom-six forward.

Of course, Anderson is valuable. And it’s a testament to the overall strength of the team that he should take the top spot here when he has the potential to be a key role player for the Canadiens over the remaining two years of his contract. However, at a $5.5 million cap hit, he arguably should be contributing more than he has and realistically will, now at Age 31.

With that, no one should read too much into Anderson’s decent 2024-25. He’s not going to transform into a top-six winger at this stage of his career, especially not when the Canadiens have as much depth up front as they do. It’s depth to which Anderson does of course contribute, but more so in the third-line role he probably should have been playing all along.