Montreal Canadiens: Will the Habs Fall Victim To the Doomed Cup Finalist Curse?

The NHL is a salary capped league, and it will be for a while to come. And that is a good thing, unless you are a member of the Toronto media who want the cap removed so the Maple Leafs can buy a superteam and a Cup.

With the salary cap, it gives the league parity, and makes it really hard to form a dynasty. You need good players to win the Cup, and good players are going to demand a high price. The band can’t stay together forever.

Tampa is probably the closest thing we will have to a dynasty anymore, with two consecutive wins, and they will have to look very different next year to be cap compliant. But, recently there has been a dark side to being in the Stanley Cup Final.

There has been a clear dichotomy between how the two Finalists have performed in the next season. Its almost like a curse. Let’s look at it:

2020 Final: Champion Tampa Bay Lightning Defeats the Dallas Stars

This is the latest Cup other than the one this year, so it is still very difficult to gauge how each Finalist will do in the long run, but we can look at this past year.

The Dallas Stars had a disastrous season, but not entirely their fault. The team was struck with COVID as the season started and missed much of the first month. And once they came back their first line of Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn and Alexander Radulov all missed very significant time.

Anton Khudobin fell back to Earth after a great playoff run. They pushed for a playoff spot, but ultimately fell short and one of the Stanley Cup Finalists from the previous season didn’t make the playoffs.

I don’t have to tell you what happened with Tampa. They just won the Cup for the second year in a row. Enough said.

2019: The St. Louis Blues defeat the Boston Bruins

The St. Louis Blues proved that the curse isn’t just extended to the losers of the Cup. The Blues propelled themselves using Laura Branigan’s 1982 hit Gloria into Stanley Cup history, and haven’t come close since.

The year after their win, they finished at the top of their divison, and got a bye of the play in round and faced the young Vancouver Canucks not expected to do much. The Blues lost 4-2.

This year they finished fourth in their new divison and drew the Colorado Avalanche. Despite Ryan O’Reilly promising a series win, they were swept out in embarrassing fashion.

Since losing in the Finals, Boston has made the second round in each of the last seasons, losing the the Champion Lightning and New York Islanders. But this is nearing the end of the Bruins empire. They won the Cup in 2011 with some of this same core, it is impressive they are still this good.

2018 – Washington Capitals defeat the Vegas Golden Knights

Once again, we find the Stanley Cup Champions struggling to find success after winning it all. The Washington Capitals were forever the bridesmaid to Pittsburgh’s bride, but finally broke through in 2018.

However, the Capitals have failed to win a single postseason series since. The year after was the closest, losing to the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games. Then in the next two years they lost 4-1 to the New York Islanders and then the Boston Bruins.

The Golden Knights have not made it back to the Final after that magical first year run, but have found lengthy postseason success. After losing to the San Jose Sharks in the first round due to a questionable penalty, they have made it to the Final Four two years in a row, losing to the Dallas Stars and the Montreal Canadiens.

2017 – Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Nashville Predators

The Nashville Predators were in a similar position as the Canadiens of 2021 as an 8th seed that made it all the way to the Final. Unfortunately, they would never get close again.

They lost to the Winnipeg Jets in the second round the next year, lost to the Stars in the first round the following year, technically not making the playoffs after losing to the Coyotes in the play-in round and losing to the Hurricanes this year again in the first round.

Although Pittsburg wouldn’t find extreme playoff success after this, this was their second straight Cup win, and they already had Stanley Cup success in 2009.

2016 – Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the San Jose Sharks

The poor San Jose Sharks, they have had one of the best teams in recent memory that has not won the Cup. Its ridiculous to think a team with Joe Pavelski, Joe Thronton, Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture, Brent Burns and Marc-Eduoard Vlasic never won. And 2016 was the closest they got.

The year after they lost in the first round to the Edmonton Oilers and lost in the second round to the Golden Knights. Now they did make the conference finals on that questionable call in the first round against Vegas that could’ve or should’ve ended the run early. The last two seasons they didn’t even make the playoffs, last year failing to make it into even the qualifying round.

Now, it is a bit questionable that the curse applies with San Jose with that conference final run, but I think more than a few fans and members of the Sharks were disappointed in the result.

And that is really where it ends. The year before the Pittsburg – San Jose Final was the Chicago Blackhawks defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning in a sort of passing of the torch. Tampa was on their way up and Chicago was at the end of their dynasty.

Where Does That Leave the Canadiens?

This year’s iteration of the Montreal Canadiens are a little bit of a different than those other teams. For teams like the Sharks, Predators, Stars and Blues their teams are older and in their primes. This year’s Habs have a very interesting mix of players.

Just a quick look at Montreal’s top players for this run proves this. There are older guys the likes of Shea Weber, Corey Perry and Eric Staal provided solid output; Jeff Petry, Brendan Gallagher, Josh Anderson and Tyler Toffoli are all in their primes; and some of their best in the playoff run are under 22: Nick Suzuki, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Alex Romanov and Cole Caufield.

While it is still up in the air how well Montreal will do in the coming year, in one of the most competitive divisions in the NHL and some important players in Shea Weber and Carey Price showing some signs of regression in the regular season.

But the long term future looks incredibly bright. We can look forward to years of one of the most dynamic young duos in the league, Suzuki and Caufield. Not to mention the gobs of new talent on the back end coming up in Cayden Primeau, Kaiden Guhle and Cale Fleury.  While all those teams hit their peak by making the Final, Montreal has yet to hit their stride. The future is bright.