The Montreal Canadiens Will Face the Philadelphia Flyers in the First Round of the Playoffs
With Philadelphia’s victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning, they are confirmed to be the Montreal Canadiens’ first-round playoff opponent; here’s how the teams stack up.
Saturday night’s 4-1 victory over the Lightning ensured the Flyers the desired matchup against the lowest seed team in the Eastern Conference playoffs: the Montreal Canadiens. Fresh off of defeating Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania rivals, the Canadiens and their fanbase had to wait a day to find out who exactly they would go on to face, and now, it has been confirmed; a rematch from the 2010 Eastern Conference Finals will occur.
While Philadelphia may not seem like a particularly formidable foe when looking at the 2019-20 NHL standings, considering the Habs just beat a Penguins team that racked up just three less regular-season points, they most definitely are. Leading up to the abrupt stop in play, back in March, Philadelphia was the only team in the league to have won more than 8 of its last ten games, with 9.
When digging a little bit deeper, isolating Philadelphia’s results between November 25 (their 24th game of the season) and the regular season’s end, shows that they went 30-14-2, racking up 62 points in 46 games. When adjusted to an 82 game season, this would put them on pace for 110 points, so this is a very good team.
And while any possible momentum disappeared with the four-month pause in play, the Flyers have thus far shown that they remain a force to be reckoned with, winning all three of their round-robin games as well as their exhibition game. That 3-2 exhibition win came against a certain Pittsburgh team, while their more meaningful wins consisted of 4-1 victories against Boston and, most recently, Tampa Bay as well as a 3-1 win against the Washington Capitals.
It should go without saying that the Montreal Canadiens are yet again the clear underdogs of this upcoming playoff series, and it can be assumed that the Habs’ players and staff are more than happy to be in that position yet again.
The season series between the two teams was won 2-1 by the Flyers, and it should be noted that both of their victories came in overtime, while Montreal’s victory, which came in mid-January, was more decisive at 4-1.
It is difficult to argue that the Philadelphia Flyers do not have more offensive star-power, as they boasted four 20-goal scorers to Montreal’s two this past season, and they added a 19-goal scorer for good measure. Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Kevin Hayes and Travis Konecny potted 21, 22, 23 and 24 goals, respectively, while James Van Riemsdyk was just one goal short of completing the oh-so-satisfying sequence of 20 to 24.
For comparison’s sake, Tomas Tatar and Brendan Gallagher were joint top on the Habs with 22 tallies apiece while Joel Armia placed third on the podium with 16. In terms of playmaking, Tomas Tatar once again led the way with 39 assists, while the Flyers were led by the ever-deceptive Jakub Voracek with 44.
At least in the regular season, Philadelphia had a clear advantage in terms of goalscoring from their big names and scored 20 more regular-season goals as a team than the Habs and that in two fewer games.
However, the playoffs are a new season, and that has never been more true than in 2020, and the Habs have so far had some depth players step up in a big way and should not be taken lightly. Paul Byron, Artturi Lehkonen and Jesperi Kotkaniemi come to mind as potential difference-makers, with the latter stepping into a top-6 centre role.
Defensively, Philadelphia once again takes the upper hand with a six-man defensive corps consisting of Matt Niskanen and Ivan Provorov playing first pairing minutes followed by Travis Sanheim and Philippe Myers and finally Shayne Ghostisbehere and Justin Braun. While Provorov may very well be the best defenseman playing in this series, it is the third pairing that holds the biggest advantage on the Habs.
Gostisbehere, a former 60-point scoring defenseman, and Braun a reliable presence at the back since 2011 will face Victor Mete, who has shown that he can be extremely effective defensively on his ay but is also prone to the occasional defensive lapse, and Xavier Ouellet, a player who has yet to cement himself as an NHLer.
The top-4 of both teams are on a far more even playing field, with Chiarot and Weber showing their worth against Pittsburgh as a physically-punishing, point-producing pairing and Jeff Petry and Brett Kulak playing a truly excellent defensive game, with the latter pocketing Sidney Crosby in the series’ two final games and the former finding a knack for scoring game-winning goals.
Lastly is the matchup that will give the Canadiens their best shot at winning this series: goaltending. Carey Price stole the show against Pittsburgh, saving four goals above average in 4 games, a frankly ridiculous statistic. Not to mention, he saved 94.7% of the shots he faced. If Price’s play should fall, so will the Canadiens.
At the other end of the ice will be Carter Hart, a 21-year-old who grew up idolizing Carey Price, something that is apparent in his style of play: cool, calm and composed. Hart has started 74 regular-season games in the past two years and has a career save percentage of 0.917; for comparison’s sake, Price’s is at 0.918 in 682 contests. Hart has displayed brilliance, and if he can do so consistently in this series, his team will have the upper hand.
However good Hart has been as a young goaltender, the advantage in this category is clear, Carey Price, with his experience and his current form, will be the biggest obstacle for the Philadelphia Flyers to overcome in this series.
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Whatever the eventual outcome will be, this should be an exciting series with spectacular saves and beautiful goals created by both teams. If you ask me, depth scoring will play a key role in this series and whichever team gets more help from their non-star players will be victorious, I just hope the Habs don’t get eliminated on a Nate Thompson goal.