Fan vote: only one CH defender in the top-100 NHL defenders

Earlier this week, my colleague JB Gagné analyzed a ranking of the best goaltenders in the National Hockey League, based on a fan vote.

This ranking, based on the votes of over 355,000 fans, was unfortunately not very kind to the Montreal Canadiens’ goaltenders, placing Jake Allen 41st and Samuel Montembeault 47th.

Obviously, Samuel Montembeault should be higher on the list, but more importantly, he should first of all be ahead of his compatriot Jake Allen.

In short, this ranking, based on the votes of many fans, does not represent an infallible science.

Nevertheless, it remains interesting to observe and analyze.

The exercise was again conducted on the Twitter account of EliteProspects.com contributor and advanced stats specialist JFresh, where this time fans voted for the NHL’s top defensemen.

Once again, it’s a final ranking that doesn’t favor the Montreal Canadiens, quite the contrary.

In fact, the Bleu Blanc Rouge has just one representative in the top-100.

That’s Mike Matheson next to the first CH logo on the list at #95.

Ouch…

While once again this ranking isn’t rocket science, it does speak volumes about NHL fans’ perception of the CH’s defense.

It obviously shows that the Tricolore doesn’t have a very powerful defense at the moment, given that it’s made up of several young players who are still slowly acclimatizing to the NHL.

And so, on the whole, Mike Matheson is logically the only defenseman on the team who stands out after an excellent end to the season.

The CH’s No. 8 recorded a career-best 34 points (eight goals and 26 assists), and did so in just 48 games due to several early-season injuries.

He surpassed his 31-point total for the 2021-2022 season, which he set in 74 games with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Ranking 95th is therefore a bitter pill to swallow for Matheson, who has clearly established himself as a very solid defenseman for the CH.

This ranking is all the more difficult to imagine when you see the name of a certain Jeff Petry at number 87, ahead of Matheson.

The two defensemen were traded for each other last summer, and since then, it’s been pretty clear who won that deal.

The CH has loved Matheson since his arrival and sees him as its number-one defenseman for the next few years, while the Penguins already seem to have had enough of Jeff Petry, who could very well be sacrificed or bought out by the Penguins in order to obtain Erik Karlsson from the San Jose Sharks.

In short, Matheson at least deserved to be ahead of Petry in this ranking.

In the end, the CH defenseman will just have to prove next season that he’s much better than that, and that he can be one of the NHL’s best defensemen.

What’s more, while the CH currently has just one representative in the top-100, that should change in the coming years with the development of all the youngsters, including Lane Hutson.

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