It would be very easy to write off the 2010-11 Montreal Canadiens as a one-trick pony that lost its trick.

Everyone saw what happened last year when Jaroslav Halak was the centrepiece of an improbable run to the Eastern Conference final, and I won't try to pretend his loss makes this team better.

Because it doesn't.

But the inevitable dip in goaltending that results from Halak now wearing a Bluenote across his chest instead of a CH – and no matter how well Carey Price plays, there will be a dip because Alex Auld is no Halak – is somewhat offset by the fact this is a club that is hitting the ground running this season.

At this time last year, Jacques Martin still didn't know any of his players, they didn't know him, and they didn't know each other.

But now the players know what to expect from their coaching staff and Martin has some big-time continuity going with his line combinations and defensive pairings. The impact of that familiarity can't be understated.

So while no less a hockey authority than Kevin Allen of USA Today has picked your Habs to finish 13th in the Eastern Conference, two spots below the opponents in Thursday night's season opener, the Toronto Maple Leafs, I feel this team will prove many a pundit wrong.

Because continuity and chemistry count for a lot in this league, and many teams spend years trying to find it.

After following this group day in and day out for two months in the playoffs last year, I truly believe the Habs have already found it.

Here's a position-by-position look at your Montreal Canadiens this season:

Goaltending

The debate on the Canadiens fortunes this season could very well begin and end here, because Price is the main unknown commodity on the team. That might be a strange thing to say about a player that's been considered the future of the franchise for the last three years, but really, who can say with any certainty which Price will show up this season?

Regular readers of The Daily Hab-it over the past two years know that I have gone to bat for Price on many an occasion, sometimes choosing to ignore blatant signs of immaturity in order to instead focus on the enormous potential this young man has as an NHL goaltender.

Well, that potential had better show itself this season, because it's make-or-break time for Price.

I still believe it will, and that's why the loss of Halak doesn't strike me as a death knell for this team. On the contrary, I feel Halak's ascension to hero status in Montreal served the greatest lesson Price could have possibly learned, and ultimately that may be the greatest gift Halak left this organization with.

"When I was sitting on the bench there was a decision that I made, if things weren't going to work out it wasn't going to be from a lack of effort," Price said at the end of last season. "I put a lot of effort into the last two months as far as being supportive and just working hard in general."

Basically, Price became a better teammate and lost that sense of entitlement he had when he was handed the keys to the organization by Bob Gainey. He saw his own professional mortality staring him in the face, and he didn't like it.

We'll see this year what kind of effect that has on him, but I believe it will be a positive one.

Forwards

This is the area where that chemistry I was talking about earlier should shine through the most.

The duos of Michael Cammalleri and Tomas Plekanec on one of the scoring lines, and Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta on the other, are practically set in stone. You couldn't say that about any of the forward combinations last fall.

The wildcards are Benoit Pouliot and Andrei Kostitsyn, who are only consistent in being wildly inconsistent. I really don't have a read on what Pouliot will do this year, but I feel Kostitsyn will seize the opportunity and have a big season.

First of all, Kostitsyn is in a contract year and needs to use his tremendous talent effectively if he wants to cash in at season's end the way his centre Plekanec did this past summer. If that six-year, $30 million contract is not an enticing carrot for Kostitsyn to go after, then nothing ever will be.

Secondly, I feel the departure of his brother Sergei might actually help Andrei focus on his game and nothing else. He's a big guy with a lethal shot, and if Cammalleri can attract enough defensive attention away from him, then Kostitsyn might actually have the time and space he needs to let go of it more often.

The bottom six forwards are vastly improved from a year ago, in my eyes, with the additions of Lars Eller, Jeff Halpern and Dustin Boyd.

The competition to avoid being the odd man out will be fierce among those three and Maxim Lapierre, Tom Pyatt, Travis Moen and Mathieu Darche, so that in itself should produce inspired play from this group.

Eller will have further motivation in that if he plays well in a third line role and one of Pouliot or Kostitsyn falter (or, God forbid, both), then a spot in the top-six would be his for the taking.

I like what I see in Eller, the toolbox is there, it's just that he's only had seven games to learn how to use it at an NHL level. With time, I feel he will be a dangerous player.

Hopefully the coaching staff and the fans give him that time, because the pressure to justify the Halak trade will far squarely on his shoulders.

Defence

A lot of people are scared that Roman Hamrlik and Jaroslav Spacek are back for another year, and I marvel at how short people's memories can be.

When Andrei Markov was lost for the better part of the first half of last year, it was Hamrlik and Spacek who played way more minutes than they should to compensate, and they played a big role in keeping the Canadiens above water until Markov's return.

When Markov gets back in uniform, which appears as though it will be sooner rather than later, the Canadiens will be running on all cylinders. And that made them a pretty good team last year.

Without Markov last year, including the playoffs, the Canadiens were 19-24-3. When he dressed, they were 29-19-7.

His absence to start the season could be offset somewhat by the full-time arrival of P.K. Subban, but it remains to be seen how much of a leash Martin will give him to display his dizzying arsenal of offensive moves.

However, once Markov comes back and is eventually paired with Subban – if that's how Martin decides to go – the brash young rookie will have a mentor who has consistently shown he has the ability to make his defensive partners shine.

Finally, the pairing of Josh Gorges and Hal Gill emerged as an elite shutdown duo in the playoffs, and if they can keep up that level of shot-blocking and sound positioning for 82 games, it will help insulate Price somewhat against opponents' top lines.

Outlook

If you can't tell by now, I'm pretty optimistic for this group, and I'm probably in the minority. But that optimism is admittedly fragile because a lot of "ifs" have to become reality for the Canadiens to build on their tremendous playoff last spring. If Price finds his game again, if Pouliot and/or Kostitsyn become legitimate top-six wingers, if Subban learns the subtleties of being an offensive defenceman, if Eller, Lapierre and Boyd can provide some bottom six scoring, if, if, if.

But that's the beauty of the start of the regular season: for now, all those "ifs" have as good a chance of being true as they do of falling through.

So in that case, I choose to err on the side of optimism and predict a fifth-place finish for the Canadiens in the east.