Ten Habs Predictions:
1) Michael Cammalleri will lead the Canadiens in goals this year.
After a disappointing output in 2010-11, Cammalleri is healthy and ready to contribute what the Canadiens expected of him when he signed two summers ago.
Scoring 30 goals should be a minimum for Cammalleri to hit if he's to make this prediction come true. You figure his closest competition will come from Gionta, who's managed more than 25 goals in each of the last two seasons.
Erik Cole and Max Pacioretty should factor into this race.
2) P.K. Subban will be invited to the All-Star Game.
He'll need a good start to make it happen, but it seems entirely reasonable to expect that his off-season conditioning has put him in position to achieve more from than he did at the start of last season. I don't expect he'll be sitting in the pressbox as a healthy scratch for any reason, as he did for a few games in the early part of last season.
If the Montreal powerplay achieves to its potential, it should buy Subban a ticket to the All-Star Game.
3) Max Pacioretty will score 20 goals, or more.
When Pacioretty suffered his traumatic injury, the most commonly voiced opinion regarding his health was "he'll never be the same."
Pacioretty agrees. On multiple occasions since the injury, he's promised to be better than he was before he got hurt.
Training camp will afford him the opportunity to display the aggressive style that inevitably had him placed in the Canadiens top-six last season, and if he gets the ball rolling early, 20 goals should absolutely be achievable.
4) Carey Price will best his 38-win total from last season.
Tall order for Price, but as I've mentioned before, this is a career-defining season for him. He's set the bar dramatically high for himself, but if he reaches it, he's looking at the contract he wants to obtain by next off-season.
Price scored 38 wins in 72 appearances. He'll either get to that number in less games this year, or beat it in the same amount of games.
Price is ready to be included in the "best goalies in the league" category. To many, he's already there. Consistency from year-to-year however is the ultimate determinant, when you consider his competition.
5) David Desharnais will beat out Lars Eller for ice-time.
I don't want people to misconstrue this as some sort of lack of faith in Eller. As far as I'm concerned, he's a much-improved player from the one who came to Montreal with lofty expectations to deal with.
That said, I think Desharnais is a more dependable player in the face-off circle, and given his advantage of being older by three years and having that much more experience, I think he'll prove to be a more dependable cog than Eller will this season.
Desharnais' offensive production is likely to tip the scales in his favor, but this still figures to be one of the closest competitions on the roster-- throughout the season.
6) Andrei Markov will play at least 60 games.
Because he has to!
If the Canadiens can't depend on their number-1 defenseman this season after three years of injury-hell, they'll be hard-pressed to make the playoffs.
He's had more than enough time to rehab his latest injury, and he has to be chomping at the bit to assume his position on a team that has achieved quite well in his absence.
It's a tough prediction to make. No one can adequately predict whether or not a player can be healthy for a given period of time, but I don't know if I'd go as far to say that he's more at risk than any other player on the roster.
People use his bad luck over the last three seasons as proof that he's injury-prone. I wouldn't qualify it as anything more than bad luck. The doctors will tell you his knee should function just as well, if not better than before. Their prognosis is good enough for me.
It'll be up to Markov to prove us right. I'm confident he will.
7) The Canadiens will finish with the top powerplay in the East.
This one's tough. Looking at their immediate competition, the Penguins, Capitals and Lightning figure to be in this mix.
In the meantime, the Rangers finally have a legitimate threat from the point in Brad Richards, and the Buffalo Sabres' offensive capacity has been genetically altered with the removal of Tim Connolly and the additions of a healthy Derek Roy, Ville Leino, and Christian Erhoff's blast from the point. The Flyers will also contend in this category.
All that considered, Andrei Markov makes the Canadiens powerplay that much better. As does the addition of Erik Cole as a net-presence. Considering the Canadiens had the second best powerplay in the East last season, Markov and Cole could boost them by at least two percentage points.
Then you have to consider that Cammalleri's powerplay production should increase with the amount of options Markov has to work with; that Scott Gomez should be better than he was last year (no stretch on this one, which we'll get to in a second); that the Canadiens will use P.K. Subban's beastly shot more, instead of ignoring his tapping stick.
8) Scott Gomez will score more than 55 points.
Because he has to! The words he spoke at the end of last season were genuine. He was embarrassed, and ashamed to look his teammates in the eye and demand things of them as a considered leader on the team.
Gomez has plenty of positive influences to turn to in that locker room, and if you speak to any of the Canadiens, they genuinely believe he can bounce back. I'm sure that helped inspire him for the summer workload he'd have to undertake to get back to a respectable level.
I expect we'll see his improvement right out of the gates. Having more options due to Erik Cole's arrival and Pacioretty's health, he should be able to hit 55-points as a minimum. If Gomez can contribute that much to the Canadiens, they'll be in better shape than most anticipate.
9) Andrei Kostitsyn will be traded at some point.
I'm on record already to suggest he won't move before the season starts, but from that point forward, he could move at any point. The Canadiens have cap space and flexibility with the depth of their roster to move Kostitsyn for value at one point or another.
I'm confident enough to say they won't offer him a contract as an impending unrestricted free agent, regardless of his output this season (not that he'll make miracles happen from the third or second line). As far as he's concerned, he's probably already considering his options outside of Montreal.
Best case scenario is that he has a great first half a season, and the Canadiens use him as a trade chip to improve their roster in the area that requires most improvement.
10) A 7th-place finish in the East, or better.
As an unhealthy group, I believe the Canadiens will be able to scramble their way into the top-7 Eastern Conference teams.
As a healthy group, they could win their division, or finish in the final home-ice position.
If Price goes down, all bets are off.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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