Montreal Canadiens: Is Long Playoff Run to Blame For Slow Start?

The Montreal Canadiens made a deep run to the Stanley Cup Final last season.

With the NHL schedule, along with pretty much everything else in the world, thrown into chaos last year, this meant they played their final game on July 7th.

In a normal season, the Stanley Cup Finals would wrap up closer to the middle of June, giving teams that go all the way three months off before getting together for training camp and about 16 weeks before they play a regular season game the following year.

Not this season. The Canadiens, and of course the Tampa Bay Lightning, who beat the Habs in the finals, ended their season about three weeks later than usual, but started training camp just seven days later than they would under normal circumstances. That might not sound like a lot, but we often hear of teams suffering from a “Stanley Cup hangover” the year after a deep run or a championship win and this just shrinks the window between seasons even further.

Calling what we saw from the Habs in their first five games of this season a “Stanley Cup Final hangover” would be an understatement. They scored just four goals in those games, never scoring more than one in a single contest and lost all five. They were completely embarrassed by the Buffalo Sabres and San Jose Sharks who were two of the worst teams in the league last season and might look even worse this year.

It was a dreadful start, and though no other team has been as bad to begin the year, the other teams that went on a deep run last year all started slowly.

The Lightning have won back to back Stanley Cups and lost some depth over the offseason, but still look like a terrific team on paper. They have not looked terrific on the ice, at least not yet.

The Lightning started their season by getting hammered 6-2 by the Pittsburgh Penguins. This team more closely resembled the Wiles-Barre Penguins as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were out of the lineup with injuries. They followed that up with a 7-6 overtime win against the lowly Detroit Red Wings, another overtime win over the Washington Capitals and then a convincing 4-1 loss to the Florida Panthers and a shootout loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

That means the formidable Lightning are yet to win a game in regulation and are 2-2-1 while being outscored by five goals. That’s a slow start for a team looking to three-peat.

The Vegas Golden Knights start hasn’t been any better. They lost to the Canadiens in the third round last year, playing their final game in late June. They started this season by squeaking by the expansion Seattle Kraken in their opening game before losing three in a row to the Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues and Edmonton Oilers. They have been outscored 14-6 in their last three games.

They played another third round loser last night when they took on the New York Islanders and someone had to win. The Isles lost a closely contested series with the Lightning last postseason, falling one game and one goal short of the Stanley Cup Final.

This season, they didn’t start looking like contenders, quickly falling to the bottom of the Metropolitan Division by starting 2-2-1, only beating the Chicago Blackhawks and Arizona Coyotes who are off to terrible starts of their own.

That means, heading into last night’s game between the Golden Knights and Islanders, the final four teams from last season combined to begin this season with a 6-12-2 record. None of them had more wins than regulation losses and the Canadiens, Islanders and Golden Knights all sat at the bottom of their divisions on Sunday.

That is a putrid start for all four team that won two or more playoff rounds last season. There has to be some connection there between short offseason and bad start to this season.

Hopefully, the Canadiens found a way to shake off that hangover with a big win on Saturday night. They are going to need to be at their best with a road trip to the west coast starting tomorrow.