HABS HOPE TO DEFY ODDS ONE MORE TIME
Stanley Cup finalists face major challenge just getting back to playoffs this season
After the year they had and all they accomplished, it would be easy to suggest the Montreal Canadiens should be among the favourites to challenge for a championship once again next season.
After all, they reached the Stanley Cup Final last season. And they did it in stunning fashion, erasing a 3-1 series deficit to the Toronto Maple Leafs, sweeping the Winnipeg Jets, and then upsetting a Vegas Golden Knights team that had finished with the most wins in the NHL.
Instead, with the Canadiens returning to the dreaded Atlantic Division that includes the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning, as well as the Florida Panthers, Boston Bruins and Maple Leafs, I'm not even sure Montreal will make the playoffs.
Disrespectful? For sure. But it's not like the Habs aren't used to it.
A year ago, no one gave them a chance of reaching the final — much less the second round — after they finished with fewer wins than 18 other teams in the league. Even when they did get there, some ridiculed them as extreme overachievers who benefited from having a hot goalie and having played in a watereddown division.
“Nobody believed in us,” said Canadiens winger Tyler Toffoli. “Nobody believed that we could do what we did and we proved everybody wrong, basically.”
Well, get used to it. Despite the year they had, the Habs have to prove themselves all over again.
Toffoli knows that Tampa Bay is the favourite to win a third straight championship. He also knows that Montreal will have its hands full in a division that had four of the top 10 teams in the league last season, as well as an up-and-coming Ottawa team that Toffoli said is full of “young guys who are super-skilled and who play the right way.”
“We have to be ready to go,” said Toffoli. “We all know what to expect. We all know that we're going to be playing against good teams. Not that we weren't playing against good teams, because we were. I mean, we played against Toronto, like, 11 times during the season and the playoffs.
“But I think after playing Tampa in the final, we got a taste of what to expect this year in the sense of their series with Florida was incredible and amazing to watch. And now we've got to play them five times each, or whatever it is, during the season.”
In other words, it's going to be a challenge.
With Tampa Bay, we mostly know what to expect. The team lost its entire third line in the summer, but they still have Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos, as well as Victor Hedman and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
“You have to assume they're the favourites right now,” said Toffoli.
With Montreal, a playoff spot isn't as secure. Despite what occurred in the post-season, I don't expect them to finish ahead of Toronto. Even finishing ahead of Boston or Florida is going to be a challenge. That could leave them battling in a Metropolitan Division that includes Carolina, Washington, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and the New York Islanders and Rangers for the final two wild card spots.
“It's almost like nobody in our division is going to get the wild card, because we're going to be beating the crap out of each other the whole time,” said Toffoli. “I don't know. I'm nervous going into the season. You just don't know what's going to happen.”
“No one knows what to expect,” said Canadiens forward Nick Suzuki. “Being so close, you want to get back there, and I think we can use our momentum to have a lot of confidence to start the season. I know what it takes to get to that point and win big games. I think all the guys who were there last year will have a lot more confidence.”
Not everyone will be back, however. The Canadiens will be without captain Shea Weber for the entire season. Philip Danault, who shut down the North Division's top scorers in the playoffs, walked away as a free agent, while Jesperi Kotkaniemi signed an offer sheet with the Hurricanes.
Those are big losses. And while Montreal filled the positions by bringing in defenceman David Savard, winger Mike Hoffman and centres Cedric Paquette and Christian Dvorak, it's difficult to say whether the recipe is still there for success.
The team believes that Suzuki and rookie Cole Caufield will take another step forward in their development, and that Toffoli will build upon a year where he ranked in the top 10 with 28 goals. But from goalie Carey Price attempting to rebound from off-season knee surgery to winger Jonathan Drouin attempting to get his career back on track, there seem to be more question marks than definitive answers.
Then again, maybe the skepticism isn't such a bad thing.
If there's a time when Montreal played its best hockey, it was when they were the underdogs and had to work to silence their critics.
“You could tell it was kind of a rowdy bunch,” said Vancouver Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko. “They had their backs against the wall.”
For Suzuki, it's a challenge he seems more than ready for.
“I showed pretty well against some of the best players in the playoffs,” said Suzuki. “So I just want to prove I can do that again.”