Our wide variety of contributors don’t always agree on things. That’s to be expected from a website that’s for the fans, by the fans. Well now our contributors have a place to argue their differing opinions in our ‘1-on-1 Battles’ series. Today’s topic: Will the Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup this season, or does the drought continue?

The Battlers: Tina Poole and Ian Boisvert

TP: It’s been 23 years since Montreal last hoisted the Stanley Cup. This year’s team has a great chance to end the streak. Here are five reasons why Montreal will win the Stanley Cup this season.

Carey Price is back

Last season, Carey Price missed all but 12 games with a serious lower-body injury. Before he was injured, the Habs got off to a franchise-best 9-0 start. After Price went down, the season was lost as well. Price is back this season and bound to be hungry to win. He recently started for team Canada at the World Cup of Hockey tournament, and looked good capping the tournament with a clutch save in the final game which allowed Brad Marchand to score the winning goal. If Price is right, Montreal has a great chance to go deep in the playoffs.

Patrick Roy will come in as head coach midseason and provide fresh ideas that will lead to instant success

I just don’t think Michel Therrien is the coach to lead Montreal to the Stanley Cup. Dan Bylsma (2009 with Pittsburgh) and Darryl Sutter (2012 with LA) both came in midseason and led their teams to Stanley Cups. Patrick Roy has a 130-92-24 record as a head coach. Roy is familiar within the Montreal organization, having played for the Canadiens. He also knows what it takes to win having won twice as a Hab and twice as a member of the Colorado Avalanche. If anyone can lead a quick turnaround it’s Roy.

Shea Weber will make Habs fans forget PK Subban and stabilize Montreal’s defense

Marc Bergevin rocked the hockey world when he traded fan favorite PK Subban to Nashville for the older Shea Weber. Many fans think Nashville won the trade, however Shea Weber should not be written off too quickly. He is only 31 and he has a wealth of experience both internationally and in the NHL. One could argue that Weber’s game might be better suited to Therrien’s coaching style. Subban, by contrast, was a high risk, high reward player. Weber will be smarter with his offensive forays and he has a terrific shot which should improve the PP. In the short term, Weber is a better choice than Subban.

Max Pacioretty will heed US head Coach John Torterella’s criticism and dominate the league alongside newcomer Alexander Radulov

Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. The Sedin twins. These are some of the dynamic duos who have dominated together in the NHL and Alexander Radulov and Max Pacioretty can add to that distinguished list when they dominate the league. Both Pacioretty and Radulov have a lot to prove this season. Radulov is re-entering the NHL after playing the last 4 seasons in the KHL and he has a reputation of not getting along with coaches. He is liable to leave the NHL again if things don’t go his way. Pacioretty was unable to stop Montreal from tail spinning in the final half of the season. He and Team USA had a poor showing at the recent World Cup of Hockey. Team USA head coach John Tortorella criticized Pacioretty for his work ethic. Hopefully these two can form the next great hockey duo.

Andrew Shaw will come in and give away all the Chicago Blackhawks secrets to success

Andrew Shaw joins the Habs from Chicago and brings with him a wealth of experience. The Blackhawks have won the Stanley Cup twice in the last four years and made it to the Western Conference final three of the past four years. Having been around that kind of success, Shaw is sure to have some secrets to help Montreal prevail. Shaw brings to the Canadiens an agitator who will keep the opponent in check. Andrew Shaw is one tough hockey player. He took a puck off the face in the 1st period of the 6th game of the 2013 Stanley Cup finals. He returned in the 2nd period of that game and hoisted the Stanley Cup with his wounds still bleeding. This is indicative of a player willing to put his body on the line in crucial situations. Surely this will be an asset to the Habs penalty kill and late in games.

If all five of the above come true, Montreal has a very good chance of winning the Stanley Cup in 2017.

IB: I hate being the bearer of bad news, but the Canadiens are not any closer to a Stanley Cup, and here’s why:

Michel Therrien is still their coach and will be for a while

Tina and I agree on one thing; Michel Therrien is not the kind of coach you win a Stanley Cup with. Just ask the Pittsburgh Penguins. While Tina sees Therrien getting the axe at some point this season, I do not think Montreal sees a new head coach for at least another season. Marc Bergevin has built this team to suit Therrien’s coaching style with a plethora of grinding bottom-six players, to defensemen reluctant to skate the puck. Bergevin knows that if Therrien can’t make this roster work, he’ll need a new coach and a new roster. Bergevin has made Therrien the hill he will die on, and it doesn’t look like Bergevin is willing to change any time soon.

The Habs are permanently one injury away from disaster

Yes, I saw Carey Price play (dominate) for Canada at the World Cup of Hockey, and yes, he does look healthy. Price looked healthy during the 2014 playoffs too. Then he didn’t look so healthy after getting run into by New York Rangers’ pest Chris Kreider. And Price looked really good last year before slipping on a puck against the Edmonton Oilers and injuring his leg. The fact of the matter is that this team goes as Carey Price goes. When Price goes down, the team struggles tremendously. Think about it; Price slipped on a puck last year, and the Canadiens finished with higher draft lottery odds than the Buffalo Sabres. I’m not saying the same thing happens this season, but any sort of absence from Price will ultimately lead to disaster.

Shea Weber is no PK Subban

I’m not going to lay into Shea Weber. I think Weber will fit in nicely on this team. I also think that PK Subban is the second best offensive defenseman in the league behind Erik Karlsson and has more defensive upside than he’s given credit for. Undoubtedly, Weber plays a safer, more conservative game. While Subban relies on speed, Weber relies on size and stick work. Subban’s speed from the back end will be sorely missed in a league that has started to embrace the fast, puck skating defenseman; those like Kris Letang, Erik Karlsson, and Brent Burns. While Weber is a very good defenseman, he is a reminder that the Canadiens are run with “old school” tactics in mind. Unless the Habs join the rest of the league in the pursuit for faster defensemen, they will not come close to a drink from the Cup.

Leadership and experience do not win Stanley Cups

I don’t know how else to put this. Leadership itself does not win games. It undoubtedly helps, but trading assets for leadership may be one of my least favorite things Bergevin has done and will continue to do. Trading two second round picks for former Blackhawk Andrew Shaw and then signing him for six years at about $3.9 million per season is where leadership is held at too high a value. Watching Shaw’s behavior in the Habs’ preseason game with the Washington Capitals leads me to believe that we may have overestimated the value of Shaw’s leadership. Furthermore, Weber’s leadership was taken in exchange for Subban’s skill in a move that could live in infamy. And when the Canadiens’ brass held their season post-mortem, the focus was on a lack of leadership and not a system that relies too heavily on Carey Price. This is not the mentality winning teams have, and the Canadiens will suffer the consequences when they fail to go deep into the playoffs yet again.

The dead weight on this team will weigh them down

While the roster has its obvious bright spots, there are some serious weaknesses on this roster. For starters, Therrien’s favorite toy, David Desharnais, is in the final year of his contract that pays him $3.5 million dollars. Desharnais’ play has declined significantly, but Michel Therrien continued to give him powerplay time last season and put Desharnais out during crucial moments in games. Similarly, Alexei Emelin has two years left on a contract that pays him $4.1 million annually and a modified no trade clause, despite being a one-dimensional defender who makes critical mistakes with the puck. Between these two players, there’s $7.6 million that could be used to add a rental at the trade deadline. I believe that Desharnais’ contract is untradeable and Emelin would need to submit a list of ten teams he would accept a trade too. That makes these contracts burdens on the team and yet another reason the Habs will fail to end the Cup drought that is older than I am.

What say you, Habs faithful? Are the Habs poised to hoist the cup this year, or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes that have plagued them over the past 23 years? 

Follow Tina (@tpoole00) and Ian (@BoisvertIan) on Twitter!