Trigger warning here Habs fans, this post contains predictions of rough times ahead for your Montreal Canadiens. If you aren’t prepared to handle that, then you should stop reading now.

Alright, now that we’ve got that out of the way and only the realists remain, let’s talk about what the Habs have coming down the pike, and how it’s relatively daunting.

By the way, if you’re questioning my “Winter is coming” prognosticating abilities, let me direct you to November 2015 when Sean O’Neill and I forewarned of a real rough December on the way for the Canadiens on The Montreal Bias podcast. If you’ve forgotten what happened to the Habs last December it’s because you blacked it out of your memory for your own well being.

At the moment, the Canadiens have just enjoyed three consecutive nights off and are well rested, though suffering down the middle already, as they prepare to face the San Jose Sharks at the Bell Centre on Friday night for the first of three games in five nights and from here on the Habs will have their hands full of games and tough opponents.

Here be dragons.

(losses and injuries)

This weekend the Canadiens go back-to-back against the Sharks and Washington Capitals. They follow that up with a week of games against the Anaheim Ducks, Minnesota Wild, and Columbus Blue Jackets, who, along with the Habs, represent 1/3 of the top 12 records in the entire NHL right now. Next up it’s a quick Christmas break and then we’re truly into Gauntlet Time, as they play 15 of 24 on the road in a 47-day stretch that begins with the annual post-Christmas/pre-New Year’s trip to Florida to visit the Lightning and Panthers, before closing out the year with a New Year’s Eve game against the Defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

The 2017 portion of the season kicks-off with one of the most hotly anticipated games of the season as PK Subban plays his first ever game against the Montreal Canadiens on January 3 in Smashville. The next night the Canadiens are into Dallas, then up to Toronto, then home to Washington, then off to Winnipeg and Minnesota for a back-to-back, and finally it’s five games in eight nights with contests against the Rangers and Penguins in the home-road-home-road-home stretch.

February kicks off with a game every second night from the 2nd in Philadelphia to the 12th in Boston, including games against other tough opponents like Washington, Edmonton and St. Louis thrown in for good measure before the Canadiens are finally given a five-night respite mid-February.

More concerning than the competition is the wear and tear. The Habs will be packing in a lot of play in a relatively short stretch of time and that kind of condensed action usually keeps the team training and medical staff busy. While I’m not expecting the same level of pain that the deep winter of 2015/2016 dished out again this season (especially since Carey Price is healthy at the moment), I do want to point out that the “real meat of the season” is about to start.

When your Montreal Canadiens come out on the other side of this stretch with a Saturday afternoon game against the Winnipeg Jets on February 18th, we should have a pretty accurate read of just what this version of the Habs is made of, what their shortcomings are, what their injury situation looks like, and just what their ceiling might be.

The good news here is that the NHL trade deadline is on February 28 this season, so Marc Bergevin will have an accurate picture of what his team is and what it needs with 10 days to do some work.

The “True Test Tunnel” (lame name, but alliteration so…) begins tonight with the Sharks in town and your Montreal Canadiens would certainly be doing themselves a favour by collecting points early in this run.

See you on the other side (and also pretty much every morning after game night on The Recency Bias mini podcast)!