Elliotte Friedman put the Canadiens' top six under a microscope, and it wasn't flattering.
On his 32 Thoughts column, Friedman said the frustration in Montreal comes down to one thing. Could they find a younger top-six forward, someone in their 20s, who plays with some snarl?
It's a fair question. Nick Suzuki is 26. Cole Caufield is 25. Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov are 22 and 20.
The ages check out. The attitude, according to Friedman, might not.
Elliotte Friedman: I think the one frustration for the Canadiens is...could they find a younger top six forward, like somebody in their 20s; they would be aggressive.
Suzuki closed the year with 101 points and 29 goals, the clear engine of this group. Caufield potted 51 goals of his own, a shooter's shooter, but shooters aren't what Friedman is describing.
Slafkovsky added 73 points and Demidov chipped in 62 as a rookie. Good numbers. Not exactly the identity Friedman is pointing at.
Kent Hughes faces a real offseason decision
This is where it gets interesting for Kent Hughes. The Canadiens finished 48-24-10 for 106 points, sixth overall in the league, a real season by any measure.
But finishing sixth overall and still hearing "we need more bite up top" tells you something. That's not a complaint about talent. It's a complaint about texture.
Think of it like a great recipe missing one ingredient. Everything else works, but there's a flatness nobody can quite name until someone points it out.
Hughes has cap room to work with and a core that's already producing. What he doesn't have, per Friedman, is a young forward willing to play through people to get to the net.
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Montreal ran a deep group of twenty-somethings all season. Suzuki, Caufield, Slafkovsky, Demidov, even Zachary Bolduc and Alex Newhook rotating through middle six roles.
Skill was never the issue. Whether that skill comes with enough snarl for a long spring, that's the question hanging over Brossard right now.
Is Friedman right that this group needs more aggression, or is that selling short a top six that just helped produce 106 points? Either way, Hughes has a decision to make before next season.
Do the Canadiens need a nastier, younger top-six forward to take the next step?
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