Let’s Dispel Some Montreal Canadiens Rumors

The Montreal Canadiens are on top baby, and have punched their ticket as one of the Top 4 teams in the entire NHL this year. But being on top isn’t easy, and it brings out a bunch of people not happy with their success trying to explain it away in any way they can.

Unfortunately, a lot of these excuses don’t really hold very much water.

1. The North Division is By Far the Weakest

There were a few people early in the year that posited that the North Division would be one of the most competitive divisions in hockey this year. But, as time went on, more and more people started saying that the North was way weaker than the other divisions.

Is that true? I find it hard to believe that a division with 3 of the top 5 players in the entire league is super weak, but let’s break it down team by team.

Toronto Maple Leafs – ‘Nuff said. They were Stanley Cup hopefuls before the season began, and still were when the postseason began.

Edmonton Oilers – They are a nightmare during the season with McDavid and Draisaitl capable of running over any division.

Winnipeg Jets – Good balanced team with the reigning Vezina winning goalie Hellebuyck and one of if not the deepest centre corps in the league (Scheifele, Stastny, Dubois and Ehlers).

Montreal Canadiens – A hard working team that doesn’t excel too much in any direction, but can play any style of hockey and has a goalie capable of stealing series.

Calgary Flames – It wasn’t too long ago that they won the President’s trophy. Their Top 6 is great with Monahan, Gaudreau, Lindholm and Matthew Tkachuk; and the defence was bolstered with Tanev and Markstrom.

Vancouver Canucks – They made the second round, further than any other Canadian team last year, and took Vegas to seven games. An injury to Pettersson and the league’s worst COVID-19 outbreak made it look worse than it should have been. Hughes, Boeser, Horvat, and Pettersson are all stars.

Ottawa Senators – I feel that people who did not watch a North Division game wrote off Ottawa as another Buffalo, New Jersey, or one of the California teams, but they are much better than that. They played everyone hard and won quite a few games down the stretch, while teams were still vying for playoff spots and position.

The East Division was a division filled with good teams, but not great ones; teams for which the Stanley Cup window is either closed or closing fast. Pittsburgh’s core is ageing fast, with little to replace them and that goaltending looked awful. Ditto with Washington. Boston has the perfection line, but where are the depth scoring and depth defence? The Islanders are a trap team, but what if they fall behind in a game, do they have the firepower to come back? The Rangers are in limbo, Philadelphia had some of the worst goaltending ever and the less said about the Devils and Sabres the better.

In the Central Division the Hurricanes, Panthers and Lightning are all contenders, but three good teams do not a tough division make. The fact that the Predators made the playoffs are kind of funny, and the Stars fell flat. If the Blackhawks without Toews are vying for a spot, that is not good. The Red Wings and Blue Jackets were both worthless and finished with fewer points than Ottawa.

The West Division was literally carried by the Avalanche and Golden Knights. The Wild were not one Kirill Kaprizov away from being a great team (although he certainly does help), the Blues are looking more and more like a flash in the pan with each year, and the 5th place Coyotes finished with only 3 more points than the Senators. That says nothing about the teams beneath them (Kings, Sharks and Ducks).

If you can put a label on the easiest division in hockey, I think it would definitely be the West. True, the Golden Knights and Avalanche tied for the President’s Trophy, but got to play the horrible Californian teams constantly. Sure, put other teams into their division, and no one is touching them for first and second. But coming in third and easily making the playoffs? No problem.

The Central Division had the most high-end teams, leaving only one spot for the teams clearly a rung lower than them to make the playoffs. I feel that the North Division is like a prime East Division. The East is full of the stars of yesteryear, like Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron and Alexander Ovechkin who are all still great, but they are slowly being left behind by Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Elias Pettersson.

There is definitely a conversation to be had about the strengths of each division, but I am pretty certain that it is not as cut and dry as people would have you think. If anything, the West Division is the weakest one.