Let’s Dispel Some Montreal Canadiens Rumors

2. Key Injuries and Suspension Are the Reason Montreal Won

Here is the thing about hockey in general. People get hurt. It is a contact sport, and even the safest hockey game will have injuries. It is too bad, but it’s a fact of any sport. Especially when those injuries are from accidents, and not malicious.

John Tavares’ injury falls into the freak accident category. A hard but clean hit from Ben Chiarot led to Tavares falling and catching Corey Perry’s knee to the head, as Perry tried to avoid the collision. Would Toronto have won the series if Tavares was not injured? Probably, but no one knows for sure. It happened, and it was awful that it did, but there was nothing that anyone could do.

Besides, Toronto did win the next three games, proving that they could beat Montreal without Tavares. It is not like Toronto won the three games, and then missed Tavares and lost the rest. It is the same story with Jake Muzzin. He clearly felt some discomfort while skating on his own, but Toronto looked listless in Game 7, and it is hard to believe that Muzzin would have made that much of a difference in the deciding game.

Montreal was very lucky with injuries in the first round, and only missed Jake Evans and Eric Staal for a game or two. They were missing Tomas Tatar after game 5, and he is a top winger on this team, but has historically struggled in the playoffs and was struggling here, with only one assist.

In the second round, Montreal drew against the Winnipeg Jets, who had some pretty good injury luck in their first-round sweep of the Edmonton Oilers. However, in between series, Paul Stastny got down with something and missed the first two games of the Montreal series. But Winnipeg has great centre depth.

In the first game of the series, Montreal got the jump on the rested Jets and jumped out to an early 3-1 lead. Mark Scheifele was frustrated all game long due to Montreal’s stifling defence, and he was looking for a fight. With a minute left, and Montreal winning 4-3 and Winnipeg’s net empty, Jake Evans put the puck in the net moments before receiving a dirty hit from Scheifele.

The hit was dirty, and the suspension was 4 games. But Scheifele and the Jets never made it to that point, being swept in embarrassing fashion. Would Scheifele have helped Winnipeg in the series? No doubt. Was he the difference between an embarrassing sweep and winning the series? No way.

And the thing is that there is not a what-if to fall back on. With Toronto, it is what if Tavares wasn’t injured? What if Muzzin was not injured? These are not the Toronto players’ fault, let alone Montreal’s fault.

But the Winnipeg situation was all the fault of Mark Scheifele. No one made him make the dirty hit. It wasn’t an accident. He could have pulled away from Evans or made a play on the puck. That is not a lucky break for Montreal, it was a mistake that Scheifele made. Like Galchenyuk giving the puck away in overtime to Caufield in Game 5, or Jack Campbell allowing a weak goal in Game 7.

Winnipeg lost defenceman Dylan DeMelo early in Game 1, but Montreal also lost a shutdown fist line winger in Jake Evans and was also without the services of Jeff Petry, who had the freak accident of getting his finger stuck in a camera hole.

So, Montreal has had some injury luck, but no one can control that. And Montreal has had some injuries of their own. I don’t think that it is something that can be attributed to Montreal’s success, especially in the Winnipeg series.