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Montreal Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher – (Jess Starr/The Hockey Writers)

Likeliest Canadiens Candidates to Regress in 2025-26

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers | By Ryan Szporer | Last updated Jun 22, 2025 9:15 AM ET

The Montreal Canadiens continued to drastically improve year over year in 2024-25. Earning a playoff berth as they did, impressively as one of the youngest teams in the league, was an incredible accomplishment, which only bodes well for the team’s short, medium, and long-term future.

With so many young players comprising the core, many if not all of whom have still yet to hit their primes, the Canadiens represent a clear threat to the status quo in the Atlantic Division in 2025-26 and beyond. Their number of departing, unwanted veteran contracts further reflects that reality along with a decreasing number of players on the roster who are due to regress. Generally speaking, as a young team on the rise, most of their players are too. There’s obviously potential for a few exceptions, though… with emphasis on “potential.”

3. Lane Hutson

Defenseman Mike Matheson probably represented the biggest case of statistical regression on the Canadiens in 2024-25. He of course put together a career-high 62-point season in 2023-24. So, some may argue he was due, which can’t really be denied. However, the degree to which he did, to where his point total got halved to 31, is mainly due to the emergence of Calder Memorial Trophy-winning Lane Hutson, who obviously took away a significant portion of his time on the power play.

Where Matheson played 3:41 per game on the man advantage in 2023-24, he only got in 1:57 per game in 2024-25 (so, just about half). For Hutson to jump right in and accomplish all he did, scoring 66 points to lead all rookies in scoring, while earning the trust of the coaching staff to the point that he would lead all defensemen in power-play time (2:49) is a testament to his skill level and ceiling. He probably has higher still to go.

So, why include Hutson here? Two reasons, really. Firstly, a lack of names to populate this list, as alluded to in the intro. Secondly, based on his significant rookie success, he’s simply one of the likeliest candidates to suffer a small setback, and perhaps succumb to the stereotypical sophomore slump. That he’s only ranked third here means he may not, though. If the 5-foot-9 defenseman has proven anything in his athletic career it’s that you shouldn’t bet against him.

2. Brendan Gallagher

Brendan Gallagher can probably relate, coincidentally also listed at 5-foot-9. His size undeniably played a factor in why he fell to Round 5 back in 2010 (No. 147 overall). He’s proven just about everyone wrong by scoring the 15th-most points of anyone in his draft class. And he proved this writer wrong by actually taking his production up a notch last season, when he had seemed like one of the likeliest Canadiens to regress instead.

Then 31, Gallagher ended 2022-23 on a significant high. After an injury to Joshua Roy, he got promoted to the “second” line with Alex Newhook and Joel Armia. There he scored 10 points in his last eight games to reach 30 for literally the first time since before the pandemic. So, it seemed likely his production would suffer a setback in 2024-25, especially with him helping to form what by all appearances was a bottom-six line with Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson.

Finding chemistry with one another, the three forwards each enjoyed career resurgences. They not only became Martin St. Louis’ second-most-used line. They also at times became a de facto second line based on their consistency and overall production, with Gallagher scoring over 20 goals, the first time he has since, again, before the pandemic.

It would of course be great were Gallagher to keep up the upward trend in production. It’s just not something the Canadiens should necessarily count on, especially with the arrival of Ivan Demidov, who automatically adds to the team’s depth on the wing, pushing just about everyone down a rung. Combined with Dvorak presumably set to hit unrestricted free agency, the now-32-year-old simply isn’t likely to find the same perfect storm of circumstances that led to him seemingly drinking from the fountain of youth on the nightly.

1. Jake Evans

Of course, if Gallagher were to continue to prove the doubters wrong, so be it. The same goes for Jake Evans, who just hit 30 points for the first time in his career, despite arguably having been a prime candidate to regress instead (as well).

Evans parlayed the success into a lucrative, yet fair four-year extension, which explains why Dvorak is likely to hit unrestricted free agency. Both are 29-year-old bottom-six centres. The difference is, whereas Dvorak was brought in back in 2021 to become the team’s No. 2 pivot, Evans has traditionally been seen as a fourth-liner. Dvorak never worked out in the aforementioned capacity, at least not over sustained periods of time, while St. Louis has at time played Evans above his weight class higher in the lineup, albeit to limited success.

Dvorak simply hasn’t worked out as initially expected, meaning if the Canadiens were to re-sign him it would probably be as a bottom-six center. Having already committed to Evans (and with prospect Owen Beck probably ready to be promoted to the NHL), the Habs just don’t need him, for a cold, hard truth.

What’s done is done in that regard. Evans is staying put. However, it’s hard to believe he’ll be able to replicate his modest offensive success, when the 13 goals he scored came on the strength of an unsustainable 16.3% shooting percentage. Case in point, after he signed his extension on March 4, he only scored one of his 13 goals over the remaining 22 games of the regular season.

To be fair, Evans did score eight points over that span, which equates to a ~30-point pace. However, any hopes he maintains his relatively high production in 2025-26 rest in either the team’s desire to play him above Beck in the lineup, presumably with Anderson and Gallagher, or to keep him with Emil Heineman (and another mystery winger instead of Joel Armia, another pending UFA) on the fourth.

The thing is, the Canadiens should have some sense of Evans’ ceiling at this point. They don’t really know how high Beck’s is. It makes more sense to put the prospect in the best position to succeed. The Habs already know they as a whole can succeed with Evans pivoting the fourth. So, that’s where he should stay.