Montreal Canadiens One-Season Wonders: Max Domi

It really seemed like the Canadiens had found their top offensive centre of the future. He had just turned 24 years old in March of the 2018-19 campaign, and his future with the team looked extremely bright. However, Domi would soon regress to what he was before arriving with the Habs.

The next season, Domi was good, but he was far from the player that he was when he first arrived with the Canadiens. He reverted to his second line numbers when he put 17 goals and 44 points in 71 games (before the 2019-20 season was shut down for the COVID pandemic). Domi was also pushed over to the wing after a rookie Nick Suzuki emerged as the second-line centre by season’s end. 

When the NHL Bubble Playoffs resumed in the summer of 2020, Domi struggled immensely and quickly lost his role within the team’s top 6 and found himself playing on the 4th line by the end of the 10 games that the Habs would play. In that mini playoff run, Domi would finish with 3 assists.

His future with the Canadiens was put into question that off-season as he became an RFA. Montreal Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin felt that the team needed to add some size and speed for the 2021 NHL season. Domi was sacrificed and shipped to the Columbus Blue Jackets for power forward Josh Anderson for the Habs to fulfill that need. 

Even after being traded from the Habs, Domi never came close to putting up the numbers he recorded during the 2018-19 season. Since leaving the Canadiens, Domi’s best season to date came during the 2022-23 campaign, where he scored 20 goals and 56 points, splitting time between the Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars. Today, with the Toronto Maple Leafs, he plays more of a middle-six centre role, where he’s unlikely to come close to 70 points ever again.

Although when you look into Domi’s 2018-19 season, there was a very clear sign that it was a one-off. Throughout his entire NHL career, Domi has been a 9.8% shooter, but that one year with the Habs, he managed to score at a 13.8% clip. Therefore, shooting a whole 4% higher than his career average, which is an amount that could definitely skew the numbers into a career year for any player. 

That 2018-19 season watching Domi was fun, but it was a one-off that he would never be able to replicate anywhere else again and much less with the Habs. I felt extremely optimistic about his future with the Habs after that season, nonetheless. Unfortunately, due to averages and other circumstances, I was left disappointed in how things played out after.

How did you feel about Domi’s big breakout season that ended up just being a one-year wonder?