Canadiens’ actions speak to heightened expectations, even if management won’t

LAVAL-SUR-LE-LAC, Que. — Montreal Canadiens president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton knows better than most what the weight of expectations can do to a team. He knows that, with his team in particular, last season’s trip to the Eastern Conference final sets a high bar for judges of this season’s team.

The reality is that in Gorton’s grand plan, an Eastern Conference finalist team was not part of the blueprint four years into a rebuild, and while that experience was hugely beneficial, judging this year’s team by that accomplishment would be entirely unfair.

“The problem with it all is we’re starting over. That’s the problem in the NHL, we don’t get to start where we ended and get to finish this thing off that way,” Gorton said Monday at the Canadiens season-opening golf tournament. “We’ve got to go through a grind of 84 games now. Although we’re pretty much the same team, it’s different. We’re starting over. So we’ll see how good we can be, we’ll see if we can take another step.

“I don’t have any interest in putting any more pressure on the players than they already have. We understand that they can feel it; they understand we can be good.”

Gorton was correct in that statement. The players do indeed understand the Canadiens can be good.

And the players are definitely using last season’s result as a floor for the coming season.

Or at least one player in particular is.

Juraj Slafkovský is not one to filter his thoughts. On Monday, he repeatedly referenced his desire to withstand a 110-game season. Not 84 games — 110. For those less mathematically inclined, that is 26 games more than the regular season calls for.

It is, in other words, four playoff rounds longer than 84 games.

“I learned that I’ve got to be better,” Slafkovský said. “What’s better? Consistent. Bring the same intensity, same energy for all the playoff run. It’s hard to prepare for that because you never know if you’re going to play 15 games or 28 games. Or no, 16, sorry. You can’t play 15 to win.”

Tempering expectations is a good thing, especially in mid-September. No one was making big proclamations about what this season’s version of the Canadiens can do aside from getting better every day, taking it step by step. There was a lot of tempering happening.

But not from Slafkovský, who vocalized his goal to be among the final two teams standing in the playoffs, a step higher than being among the final four last spring.

“If we have to play 110 games,” he said, “I want to be able to play them at the same pace, with the same energy.”

Anything can happen this season, as Gorton emphasized. The reality is the Canadiens are beginning to behave like a team with Stanley Cup aspirations, even if they are reticent to admit it outright.

Chris Kreider’s signing is one part of that. He’s a 35-year-old with a ton of playoff experience who can easily be seen as a piece meant to get a group over the top.

“The first thing that comes to mind with Chris, obviously, is his speed, his compete level. And when you have that kind of speed, you can bring physicality,” St. Louis said. “To me, it’s simple: You look at our club, what do we need? Well, we need probably a little more experience. He checks that box. Need a little more sandpaper, checks that box. And net front guy, he checks that box. And all these boxes wouldn’t matter unless he was a quality human being, and to me it starts with that with Chris. So we’re really looking forward to getting him with our group and to get going.”

It is a concept general manager Kent Hughes was not shy to espouse Monday, comparing it to conversations he had with his former client Patrice Bergeron about how much veteran Mark Recchi’s experience helped the Boston Bruins capture the 2011 Stanley Cup.

“This is something you need to live through to understand what it is,” Hughes said. “Chris has a lot of playoff experience, and on the international side as well.”

Chris Kreider a hâte de jouer pour les Canadiens

Chris Kreider is excited to play for the Canadiens#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/Z7uEXrPGyc

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) September 14, 2026

Another part of it is the addition of Derek Lalonde as an associate coach, adding a veteran to Martin St. Louis’ coaching staff who has lived through the expectations the Canadiens now face in the market. He was an assistant coach in Tampa Bay when they won the Stanley Cup in back-to-back years after suffering a devastating first-round sweep at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets. He was a head coach in Detroit, managing an emergence from a Red Wings rebuild that never quite got off the ground the way they hoped. He was an assistant coach in Toronto last season for a Leafs team that underperformed expectations in a big way.

Lalonde has been through both sides of success, and that will be invaluable as the Canadiens navigate these uncharted waters of heightened expectations.

“It’s not like I have a big relationship with Derek. I didn’t know him well, but I know a lot of people who know him well from his time in Tampa,” St. Louis said of the hire. “To me it’s his path. You start with finding a good person, and then you go to other steps: his path, the experience he’s gained. … So there are a lot of things, with where I am in my path, where he can help me a lot.”

For a team trying to temper expectations, adding Lalonde would not necessarily be so critical. But with where the Canadiens are right now, it is critical. Lalonde will provide important perspective and will be tasked with improving the defense and the penalty kill, two areas where the Canadiens have a lot of room for growth.

“I’ve been on teams where expectations have risen,” Lalonde said. “Obviously we experienced that in Tampa. I talked about how we experienced that in Detroit, and it stalled, and it didn’t go well for us in meeting those raised expectations. For me, it’s just going to help add on to what they’ve already done here, a little bit different perspective.

“When Marty talks, it’s real when he talks about the process over outcome. But now it’s even more important. As the expectations have risen, it’s going to be even more about process.”

But the remaining runway players like Slafkovský, Lane Hutson and Ivan Demidov reaching their ceiling is the biggest part of the team’s lofty aspirations. While it is understandable that management is hesitant to vocalize those goals, having one of those young pillars willing to state them publicly is a good sign.

If Slafkovský spent his summer preparing to play 110 games this season, perhaps we should all be expecting to watch 110 games as well.