Canadiens fans should have been rooting for the Leafs
Canadiens fans should be careful what they wish for.
Many of those fans who remain engaged in the NHL playoffs — and that’s not a given in Montreal where passion for the game doesn’t extend far beyond the fortunes of the Canadiens — were delighted when the Florida Panthers upset the hated Boston Bruins.
Personally, I felt sad that we might have seen last of Patrice Bergeron, who has set the standard for two-way forwards throughout his Hall of Fame-worthy career. And I was rooting for Boston coach Jim Montgomery, a Rosemont native whose career is back on track after a battle with alcohol abuse.
But the fans who cheered for the Panthers in the first round, and continue to cheer for them as they vanquished the even more hated Toronto Maple Leafs, have lost sight of the big picture.
Over the past season, the focus in Montreal had been on the upcoming NHL entry draft. The grand prize for the draft-lottery winning Chicago Blackhawks is Connor Bedard, who is projected as a generational player in the mould of Sidney Crosby or Connor Mcdavid. The Canadiens finished the season with the fifth-worst record in the NHL and they didn’t move in the lottery.
The news is that this year’s talent pool is considered a deep one and there is an excellent chance the Canadiens will find a good prospect who can hurry the rebuilding process even if his name isn’t Connor Bedard.
Which brings us to the reason why it’s counterproductive to root for the Florida Panthers. The Canadiens obtained the Panthers’ firstround pick in a 2022 trade for defenceman Ben Chiarot and, the further Florida goes in the playoffs, the lower the pick.
If the Panthers had lost to the Bruins or Leafs, Montreal would have received the No. 17 pick. When Florida, the last team to qualify for the Eastern Conference playoffs, added to the Maple Leafs’ playoff woes, the best Montreal could hope for was No. 29. If the Panthers continue their Cinderella run and win the Stanley Cup, the Canadiens would pick 32nd.
It makes Canadiens fans wish they had held their noses and rooted for the teams they hate.
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The other part of the Chiarot trade involved Tyler Smilanic, a forward who played for the United States at the world juniors and put up good numbers in his first two years at Quinnipiac University.
General manager Kent Hughes had seen Smilanic play in the U.S. National Team Development Program and felt his scoring ability and speed would fit into the Canadiens’ style of play
But Smilanic hit a roadblock after he transferred from Quinnipiac to the University of Wisconsin. He struggled to meet expectations and decided to take a break to address his mental-health challenges.
“I knew I got to a point where I needed to make a choice whether to keep going day by day, struggling, or step back and change my life to make it better,” Smilanic told College Hockey News.