Montreal Canadiens: The Perfect Ending To A Perfectly Un-Perfect Season
By Joshua Rosa
What can be said about this Montreal Canadiens season that hasn’t already been said? It was a historic season for all the wrong reasons. The Montreal Canadiens are the first team to finish in 32nd place in the league.
They lost the most games due to injury ever (only Nick Suzuki played all 82 games). They are one of the only teams to go from the Stanley Cup Final to last place in the league. Although, that might not be so surprising in this era of parity. The St. Louis Blues did the opposite a few years ago and that was in the same season.
But none of that mattered on Friday, April 30th, 2022. It didn’t matter that the game had no impact on the bigger picture of the season. It didn’t matter that the Florida Panthers iced Ben Chiarot, Anthony Duclair, an ancient Joe Thornton and an AHL team.
I could not care less. It’s my favorite game of all time (I guess of games that I have had the pleasure of seeing in person), and I might wager it to be my father’s too.
I’ll keep this section brief, as I am sure that almost no one really cares of the exploits of some old fart and his son traipsing through Montreal for the first time, doing all the tourist-y things all us annoying Anglophones do when visiting hockey’s mecca.
But it was both of our first games at the Bell Centre. I have seen some Canadiens games in Buffalo, and no offense, but it isn’t even close to the atmosphere of Montreal. Even before the game, in a profoundly losing season, the building was packed and loud.
It could not have been more perfect. Well, I guess Suzuki could’ve scored and it would’ve been nice if Carey Price got a shutout. But at least ex-Hab Ben Chiarot scored a goal and assist on the two Florida Panthers goals.
But everything else made up for that in spades.