Montreal Canadiens: It’s Now or Never

Here’s probably the most insane thing about this amazing playoff run. It technically should not have happened. Montreal finished the season with 24-21-11, which is good for 59 points. That is not great, even in the shortened season. But fear not, the points and record does not really matter this year.

In normal years, every team plays every other team, and the hope is that each team would have a similar season when it comes to difficulty. But when teams only play teams within their own division, the strength of that division becomes a big talking point. Both Colorado and Vegas, the teams that tied for the President’s Trophy for most points in the regular season, were in a weak division. Montreal’s North Division was fairly even but lacked a major Cup contender outside of Toronto.

In case you need a refresher, to make the playoffs in a regular season (and hopefully next season), you need to be in a playoff spot, duh. The league is broken into two conferences, and those conferences are further broken down into two divisions. The top three teams in each division get a playoff spot, and then 2 playoff spots go to the two best teams not in the top three of the divisions in each conference. Got it?

So, Montreal just has to finish in the top three in their division and they are set. Easier said than done. If I can poach a term from the currently occurring Euro Cup, Montreal’s division, the Atlantic one, is the group of death. This might be the first year that one division will have both the Stanley Cup finalists, at least the first in a long, long time. So let’s look at the competition.

Tampa Bay Lightning

The Atlantic Division will have the Stanley Cup winner, guaranteed. Whether it be Montreal or Tampa Bay has yet to be determined, but having both the Finalists is tough in and of itself.

Tampa Bay has had a great regular-season team for a long time now. They made an incredibly smooth transition from the times of Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis to Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov. Now they have created an incredibly deep, amazingly talented roster in the Everglades. All-star defenceman Victor Hedman, Vezina winner Andrei Vasilevskiy, former captain of the Rangers and Montreal draft pick Ryan McDonaugh, playoff warrior Brayden Point and all this for just $18 million over the cap.

Yes, the Tampa Bay Lightning have some cap issues, and they will rear their ugly heads even higher this season. It helps that the Lightning have one of the most limber GMs in Julien BriseBois, whose cap gymnastics put all other NHL GMs to shame. But with potential rule changes to the Long Term Injury Reserve and the lack of a Taxi Squad will put the Lightning in a tough spot, and they will have to lose some premium talent.

That being said, it would have to be some catastrophic losses for Tampa to fall out of the playoffs. Expect them to return to one of the top 3 spots in the division.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Okay, everyone, let’s have a laugh at the Toronto Maple Leafs. When it seemed no longer possible, Toronto lost another first-round playoff. This time to their hated rivals, the Montreal Canadiens.

Laugh over. In all seriousness, Toronto is still a really good team. Despite being an abject failure in every single way in the playoffs, the Leafs are still a fantastic regular-season team. Matthews is the best scorer right now, and looks to keep it that way for the foreseeable future, and Marner is a top 5 scorer in the regular season. Not to mention John Tavares and William Nylander on the second line.

The defence and goaltending project to be the same, or extremely similar, next year. The big question is if Jack Campbell will be able to keep up the form that he had all this year into the next. But Toronto has gotten far in the regular season before with suspect goaltending.

The big loss will be Zach Hyman, who it seems will be a cap casualty this year. It is a big loss, but I think that it will be seen more in the playoffs than the regular season. Toronto is good enough up front to lose Hyman and still make the playoffs pretty comfortably. Look for them to occupy one of the top three spots and be a target for a nice first-round match-up.

Boston Bruins

For as good as the Tampa Bay Lightning have been in recent history, Boston has been doing that for even longer. Boston has made the playoffs every year since 2016, and has looked good in each of those seasons. But to look at their success, we have to look back even further.

Boston won the Cup in 2010-11. The Blackhawks won Lord Stanley’s Mug the year before and are now in a big rebuild. Ditto with the winners of the year after’s the championship, the L.A. Kings. But Boston has not seen a rebuild. Boston went all the way to the Final in 2013, where they lost to the Chicago Blackhawks, and 2019 where they fell to the St. Louis Blues.

But, every great team must fall someday, and Boston is heading down that way. Although they made it to the second round this year, the team looked exceptionally shaky, especially in the early season, where it seemed the Bruins could not score 5-on-5. The addition of Taylor Hall definitely helped, but he is not under contract for the next season. The sides have shown mutual interest in resigning, but who knows if they can work Hall under the cap.

Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Krejci (who might not return next year), have been so good for so long, the thought of age-related regression seems like a foreign concept. But eventually, it will happen. You cannot be on top forever. And all those years of winning have caught up with the Bruins. While David Pastrnak is a steal, the depth on both the front end and the back end has dried up.

Boston looks to be good again this year, however, they might not be great. If Boston can pick up some big depth pieces they can go far. I am not sure if they are a lock for one of the three, but they will definitely be in the conversation.

Florida Panthers

The GM of the year finalists this year were brought down to three candidates. The Canadiens’ Marc Bergevin, legend Lou Lamariello of the New York Islanders (who ended up winning the award) and a relatively new and unknown name of Bill Zito of the Florida Panthers.

And it is not for a bad reason. The Florida Panthers have turned a corner, and after years and years of not having an identity and having flip-flopped on tactics over and over and over again. But Zito has built a really nice team in Florida.

They only made the playoffs and were bounced in the first round, but that was to the powerhouse Tampa Bay Lightning. They have the reigning Selke Trophy winner in Sasha Barkov, high-paid goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, star defender Aaron Ekblad and the list goes on. They even added a potential star in Sam Bennett, who scored at a point and a half per game pace in the regular season, and just under a point per game in the playoffs.

The Panthers actually finished above the Lightning (who were not at full strength during the regular season due to the cap), and only one point behind the division champs Carolina Hurricanes. Just one more win and the Panthers get the much easier first-round match-up of the Nashville Predators, and we could have been seeing this team in a different, more positive light.

In the conversation for one of those top 3 spots for sure. Maybe a lock, but the Panthers do have a history of riding up and down the table from year to year, and so much rests on Bobrovsky. Will he continue his great season this year, or be as terrible as he was to start his tenure as a Florida Panther?

And the Rest

The rest are not really worth talking about. The Ottawa Senators, Detroit Red Wings and Buffalo Sabres all look to be really bad this year again. Or at least bad enough to not threaten for a playoff spot.

At least Ottawa and Detroit are trending upwards. They both have some intriguing new talent, and have the chance to get more at this year’s draft. The Buffalo Sabres do not. After drafting highly touted players in Jack Eichel and Rasmus Dahlin, the team has only gotten worse, threatening to break the league’s longest losing streak.

The Metropolitan Division, which will be fighting with the Atlantic Division for those precious two wild-card playoff spots, is pretty similar to the Atlantic. Some high-end talent in Pittsburgh, Carolina, New York Islanders and Washington. And some terrible teams in Columbus and New Jersey. Philadelphia is an interesting case, having had an awful year this year and not making the playoffs, but usually being able to bounce back the year after.

So Montreal has to compete with one of those 4 good teams for a wildcard spot, along with one of the good teams from their own division. If it comes down to Montreal, Florida and the Islanders for two playoff spots, I am not sure that Montreal gets one. Not without some changes to the team.

They are going to have to fill the hole of Tomas Tatar, and while Cole Caufield will definitely help, some depth wing scoring would be nice. And most importantly is that Montreal needs to find consistency in their regular-season game. If they play like they are capable of, in the playoffs and early this regular season, they are making the playoffs. But if they play as they did later in the season, you can kiss a playoff berth, and a chance to defend goodbye.

Thanks to ageing core players and a tougher road to the playoffs, this year might be Montreal’s best chance at the Cup for a while. Guys like Kotkaniemi, Suzuki, Caufield and Romanov will get other chances, and the long-term future looks bright, but for cornerstone players Carey Price and Shea Weber, it really is now or never.