Montreal Canadiens: Make the Playoffs and Anything Can Happen

The 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs: The Impossible Run

2021 was one of, if not the strangest season in NHL history. Games were played with no fans in the crowd and divisions were rearranged to limit travel. Teams couldn't move between countries so all the Canadian teams were put together in one division, with 4 playoff spots up for grabs.

As expected, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers ran over the division with their high-end offensive talent, and the Winnipeg Jets and Montreal Canadiens won the other two spots, but weren't expected to do much.

Should I put the Craig Button quote here?

Like, its one thing to be wrong, most people got the results of this series between Montreal and Toronto, but its impressive to be this wrong. No matter how good Toronto was, or how bad Montreal was, anything can happen.

And Button was proven wrong in just one game. Josh Anderson flashed some of his potential opening the scoring, and Paul Byron scored an amazing solo effort goal, and Toronto lost the first game of the series 2-1.

To be fair, Toronto came back and dominated 3 games straight and it looked like everyone (except Button) would be right, but the Habs wouldn't go down without a fight. The Habs scored the first three goals, but the unlikely offensive hero Jake Muzzin scored two third period goals, and the game went to overtime.

And the game's script should have been written. The team that comes back from three down always wins. Toronto's the better team, and have all the momentum. But former Montreal Canadien Alex Galchenyuk flings a puck across the blueline, giving Caufield and Suzuki a 2-on-0 and those two don't miss.

And then they ran the script back again. Montreal was up 2-0 in the third, but Toronto tied it up, and completely dominated the overtime. But, again, one errant pass, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi wrists a goal that ties the series.

And at that point no one expected Toronto to win game 7. Between Tampa Bay, Columbus and Boston a couple of times, Toronto could never win the winner-takes-all game. And this was no different, as Corey Perry scored the game winner.

Elsewhere, the other Canadian favorite Edmonton Oilers had an even worse time, getting swept by the Winnipeg Jets. But after the Toronto and Montreal series went the distance, Winnipeg had to sit for a long while, and perhaps they would be rusty.

And maybe rusty would be an understatement. Montreal came out hard, and beat Winnipeg in game 1, finishing it off with a Jake Evans empty net goal, scored just before he is charged by Jets star forward Mark Scheifele.

""I thought I was going to be tried to be shut down by Phillip Danault, but it was the Department of Player Safety that shut me down. So that definitely sucks.""

Mark Scheifele

Hey, maybe you shouldn't have made a dirty hit at the end of a game you already lost and then Phillip Danault would've shut you down. Instead, Montreal held Winnipeg to just 3 goals in the last 3 games of the season, and rookie Cole Caufield assisted on Tyler Toffoli's series winner.

So the Montreal Canadiens were the Kings of the North. But America was a different story. Now they would have to play the Vegas Golden Knights, a real contending team, and they weren't given much of a chance. Or any chance at all.

Forbes at the time reported that Vegas had a 81.82% chance of beating Montreal, based on the betting odds as one of the biggest mismatched odds in recent memory.

The first game was a dominating performance from Vegas, but it did have Caufield's first NHL playoff goal. But the Habs won the next two games 3-2 both times, and that included another Cole Caufield goal.

Game 4 was tight, but went Vegas' way in overtime, and Golden Knight's goalie Robin Lehner had some choice words for Canadiens rookie Caufield and showed how much he was in the Golden Knights head.

Lehner basically said they had scouted and figured out Caufield. Caufield then responded by scoring in the next game and the Habs won decisively, and the Golden Knights had suddenly found themselves in a must win game.

But to be fair, Lehner was the one that said he figured Caufield out, and Fleury was the one that was scored on in game 5. But Lehner would start in game 6, surely the upstart Canadiens rookie couldn't score on a goalie that figured him out, could he?

Huh. That looks like Robin Lehner, reading Cole Caufield wrong and going for a pokecheck, allowing Caufield to roof the puck and score his fourth playoff goal. And early in the overtime period, Arturri Lehkonen put the Canadiens into the Stanley Cup Final.

And then the Stanley Cup Final sucked. Tampa Bay just flat out beat the Montreal Canadiens and it wasn't particularly close. We can have a conversation about the circumvention of the salary cap and the loophole that was found, but ultimately it doesn't matter.

So that is three different examples of what can happen when you make the playoffs, and that is just focused on one team. There are countless other examples. The Habs might make the playoffs this year. The way they are playing recently, anything can happen. And once you are in, anything can happen.