Montreal Canadiens: Five Teams That Prove NHL Teams Can Go From Last to Playoffs
1997-98 Boston Bruins
Not much went right for the 1996-97 Boston Bruins. After making the playoffs for a record 29 straight seasons, not only did they miss the postseason, but they dropped all the way to last place in the NHL standings.
Of course, in 1998 that was just 26th overall, so it doesn’t sound quite as bad as 32nd. But the Bruins were at the bottom after allowing the most goals in the league and winning just 26 games.
They were able to turn things around immediately and make it back to the playoffs in 1998 and all it took was a serious of enormous transactions that drastically changed the direction of the franchise.
They selected Joe Thornton first overall in the 1997 NHL Draft and would take Sergei Samsonov with the 8th overall pick in that same draft.
They made a huge trade late in the last place season that sent veterans Adam Oates, Rick Tocchet and Bill Ranford to the Washington Capitals for youngsters Jason Allison, Anson Carter and Jim Carey. They also traded leading scorer Jozef Stumpel to the Los Angeles Kings for Dmitri Khristich and Byron Dafoe.
They also replaced Steve Kasper behind the bench with veteran Pat Burns who had already won two Jack Adams Awards in his career and would get a third with the Bruins.
While Thornton only scored seven points that season, their nearly completely revamped top six forwards with Allison, Carter, Samsonov and Khristich was enough to reset a veteran roster and get them right back to the playoffs.
They would lose to the Washington Capitals in six games in the opening round of the 1998 playoffs. Oates scored seven points in the series against his former team.
I guess that means the Canadiens are just two enormous trades, two top ten picks and a Hall of Fame head coach away from the playoffs next season?
2001-02 New York Islanders
The 2000-01 New York Islanders were not a very scary offensive team. Dave Scatchard finished second on that team in goals and third in points. Mariusz Czerkawski led the team in scoring with 30 goals and 62 points.
Future Canadiens defender Roman Hamrlik was the second highest scorer on the team with 46 points. It wasn’t a good offensive team and between a really old John Vanbiesbrouck and a really young Rick Dipietro, they couldn’t find a reliable starting goaltender either.
They did some enormous roster reconstruction in the offseason. The Islanders, shortsightedly I might add, traded the second overall pick, which everyone knew would be Jason Spezza, as well as towering young defenceman Zdeno Chara and gritty winger Bill Muckalt for Alexei Yashin.
They also sent two recent top ten picks in Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt to the Buffalo Sabres for Michael Peca. The Islanders also dealt their second round pick for veteran defender Adrian Aucoin. The deals gave the Islanders much better depth down the middle for the 2001-02 season, but it was clearly a pair of trades with no regard for the future of the franchise.
I guess it kinda worked since they made the playoffs in 2002, where they lost a hard fought series in seven games to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs won a Game 7? It truly was a different time.
This would be like the Habs trading the first overall pick and Kaiden Guhle for Evgeni Kuznetsov and also trading Ryan Poehling and Jesse Ylonen for J.G. Pageau. Probably not the best idea.
2007-08 Philadelphia Flyers
The 2006-07 Philadelphia Flyers are one of the weirdest teams of the salary cap era. They were great in 2005-06, finishing the regular season with 101 points. Then, they nearly slashed their point total in half and ended the 2006-07 season with just 56 points.
They had a great young core with Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Simon Gagne, R.J. Umberger and Joni Pitkanen on both teams. They also had great veterans like Peter Forsberg, Mike Knuble, Michal Handzus, and Sami Kapanen but it didn’t work at all for one year.
But then it did again. The 2007-08 Flyers not only made the playoffs, but they went on a run to the Eastern Conference Final. You might remember them beating the Canadiens in round two on the strength of Umberger becoming a superstar for two weeks and trade deadline pickup Vinny Prospal being unstoppable.
Prospal wasn’t the only pickup, as Daniel Briere signed with the Flyers in the offseason, and the Nashville Predators traded them Scott Hartnell and Kimmo Timonen for a first round draft pick.
Timonen, Hartnell, Briere and newcomer Joffrey Lupul played big roles on that playoff team. So did Martin Biron who was brought in to play goal after Robert Esche and Antero Niitymaki struggled in the 2006-07 season.
2016-17 Toronto Maple Leafs
The 2015-16 Toronto Maple Leafs are known as a recent “tank job.” However, they weren’t really a team that lined up to tank as much as they were a really poorly constructed team that finally decided to trade away Phil Kessel.
With Kessel gone, the team was not good. They won 29 games and finished the season with 69 points. They had their eyes set on Auston Matthews all season and would be rewarded with the first overall pick and got their man.
With Matthews on the roster, the Maple Leafs quickly set out to fill the biggest gap on the roster. They traded a first round pick and a second round pick to the Anaheim Ducks for goaltender Frederik Andersen.
Suddenly, with Matthews, as well as fellow rookies Mitch Marner who was drafted fourth overall a year earlier and William Nylander who was taken 8th overall the year before that, the Leafs had a dangerous offence.
Patience through a few drafts, and adding the right goaltender at the right time, can turn around the fortunes of a franchise very quickly. The Maple Leafs lost in the first round (I mean, obviously) but that’s a long way from last place.
2017-18 Colorado Avalanche
The 2016-17 Colorado Avalanche had one of the worst seasons in NHL history. They were a decent team the previous year, finishing with 82 points, but things went sideways in 2016-17.
The only big change on the team occurred behind the bench, but the timing was awful. Patrick Roy had been the team’s head coach but chose to step away from the team in August of 2016. This left them scrambling for a bench boss on the eve of training camp and they settled on Jared Bednar.
They did have some good young players to build around, inducing Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog. So, even though they finished the season with just 48 points, the team pretty much decided to stay the course for the 2017-18 season.
Their only real big trade occurred early in the season when they finally dealt Matt Duchene who wanted out. He was sent to the Ottawa Senators for a package that landed them Samuel Girard on the roster immediately.
The Avalanche had some added depth with rookie Alex Kerfoot, Tyson Jost and JT Compher all playing their first full seasons. They also benefited from having Semyon Varlamov back healthy after he played just 24 games in the last place season.
Huge breakouts from MacKinnon and Rantanen as well as much better goaltending and a little more depth on the blue were the biggest reasons for the Avalanche turning it around. A little consistency from a young coach on the bench didn’t hurt as well as Colorado went from last place to the postseason in 2018. They lost to the Nashville Predators in the first round in six games.
Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield taking their games to whole new levels, decent production from rookies like Shane Wright, Jordan Harris and Jesse Ylonen and a healthy season from Carey Price could see the Canadiens make a similar turnaround in 2022-23.
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