These Are Not Your 2009 Habs

The Canadiens have had to change their image substantially over the summer, especially since free agency was poised to kick them square in the ass. The end result seems to look a fair bit different, but in some cases, they almost seem the same in some ways. The Habs remain quick and versatile up front, as Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta bring a lot of speed, yet not very much size, to the picture. That seems to be a Montreal thing anyways. The defense seemed to improve a little with Jaroslav Spacek and Paul Mara added to the mix. Then there is the goaltending, which stays the same heading into the 2010 season. I really wonder if this team is going to fare better than last year's squad in the end.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Mike Cammalleri	Andrei Markov	Carey Price
Brian Gionta	Jaroslav Spacek	Jaroslav Halak
Scott Gomez	Roman Hamrlik
Andrei Kostitsyn	Josh Gorges
Max Lapierre	Paul Mara
Guillaume Latendresse	Hal Gill
Sergei Kostitsyn	Ryan O'Byrne
Glen Metropolit
Travis Moen
Georges Laraque

Cap-wise, the Canadiens managed to use up a great portion of their large open space already. They came into the free-agency period with well over $30 million in cap space and they have done well with it. The Canadiens team above has 19 players signed on at a cap hit of $52 million, which is actually fairly reasonable for a team that will likely push the cap ceiling by the end of the season.

The team also has to re-sign Tomas Plekanec, who is the last major restricted free agent still out there. He has an arbitration hearing at the end of the month, so he should have his pen put to paper by August.

I'm not terribly convinced that the team has gotten better, especially with losses like Alex Kovalev and Saku Koivu, but now the new coaching staff has something without high expectations to work with at the moment. That should be good for the team.