2026 Montreal Canadiens Top 25 Under 25: Ranked Roster
The countdown of the top 25 players under the age of 25 in the Montreal Canadiens organization is complete, and now we see how players at each position fall into the pecking order. While the Habs’ roster will feature many players who didn’t qualify for the series, especially with a graduating class of six NHLers from 2025, a lot of the players we profiled will be finding their way onto the ice at the Bell Centre to begin their NHL careers.
With that in mind, we can sort our list by position to come up with a roster of the future, with the top-ranked players as the stars and the depth filled out as we go down the order. First slotting in number-one-ranked Lane Hutson on the left side of the top pairing and filling in the full 23-man roster using the same method, this is what such a team would look like:
The roster features 13 forwards and eight defencemen because the eighth-highest blue-liner (#21 Timofei Runtso) was higher in the countdown than the 14th forward (#23 Sasha Pastujov).
Last year you needed to go nine deep into the order to fill out the top spot at every position. This summer that gets accomplished by eighth, where David Reinbacher is found to join Hutson on the top pairing, as he has each year of the three in which we’ve produced this particular article. It’s not out of the question that that becomes a reality in the near future, completing a partnership that management likely had in mind when Reinbacher was originally drafted in 2023, but injury concerns remain the biggest roadblock to the Austrian claiming that role.
After Hutson, the next three spots are taken by the forwards who make up the first line in this exercise: Ivan Demidov, Juraj Slafkovský, and Michael Hage. The first two are legitimate top-line options who have already played that high in the lineup for the Canadiens, while we will still have to wait until at least the end of this season to see how Hage fares versus NHL competition. His decision to return to university may have disappointed a lot of fans, but it didn’t prevent him from rising five places, pulling away from Oliver Kapanen who played the 2C role last season.
Jacob Fowler is the top goaltender yet again, but that may only be because Jakub Dobeš was too old to get ranked after his breakout 2025-26 season. It seemed inevitable that Fowler would one day take the number-one role with the Habs, but now that isn’t so certain. It’s a great situation for the organization to have two young goalies vying for the majority of the starts immediately following the rebuild.
The deepest position in the organization remains right wing, bolstered further by the addition of Gleb Pugachyov at the draft. It could be this exact foursome of Demidov, Alexander Zharovsky, Pugachyov, and the energetic L.J. Mooney that comprises the NHL depth in a few years.
The left side of the defence is second in terms of quality, with two top-five players on the first two pairings in Hutson and Kaiden Guhle. The Canadiens yet again spent their summer focused on bolstering the right side, and one of their additions, Timofei Runtso, completes the defensive depth this year. However, it is the only position that doesn’t feature a player with a large enough body of work in the NHL to get a proper read on their ability.
We are back in the situation where centre is one of the weakest positions in the prospect pool, going as low as 15th to find a third-liner for the list. With Russian wingers and right-side defencemen being the focus, centres have been overlooked in the past few drafts, which could become an issue down the road when replacements are needed for Phillip Danault and Jake Evans. This could be the main area targeted in the 2027 draft, but the now-competitive Habs will need to find and develop some hidden gems from lower positions to improve the outlook down the middle. Hage, Beck, and Rohrer weren’t top prospects when they were selected, so the scouting staff knows how to find them, but with all the other positions relatively stacked, I think we’ll see some riskier bets looking for top-six options in June.
