The Canadiens’ strong play over the past few weeks has the team very much back in the playoff mix.
If you say you expected this frankly unbelievable resurgence of the Canadiens over the past few weeks, I’d suggest you are playing hard and fast with the truth. To put it another way: liar, liar, pants on fire.
Precisely no one predicted what is going on with the Habs right now.
I was on TSN 690 morning co-host Shaun Starr’s podcast on Sunday and he pointed out at the start of our conversation that since we last spoke Dec. 10, in the 11 games they’d played since then, they were 7-4, had two three-game winning streaks, were 4-1 in their last five, and were one point out of a playoff spot.
That was before their inspirational victory Monday evening against the Vancouver Canucks, which put them in a playoff spot, with (at the time of writing) the team holding the last Wild Card spot in the East.
In other words, Monday evening, the Canadiens weren’t in the mix, they were in the playoffs … at that exact moment.
Of course it is only the halfway point of the season and there’s a lot of tough hockey games to come. But still.
This is something else. Keep in mind that the last time the Habs made it into the playoffs after a full regular non-COVID season was in 2016-2017. For those counting, that’s eight years ago.
So what happened? Well obviously the arrival of Patrik Laine had a huge impact. It wasn’t just because of all those power-play goals, though they didn’t hurt. The Finnish sniper actually re-energized the whole team, the same team that went into a major funk when Laine was injured in the pre-season.
Then there’s what now looks like a genius trade — sending the underperforming Justin Barron to Nashville in return for Québécois D-man Alexandre Carrier. His slotting into the right-hand side of the second pairing allowed Kaiden Guhle to move back to the left where he belongs, but it also solidified the entire defence corps.
Still, it’s about much more than Laine, Carrier and Dobes. The third and fourth lines have been on fire, Kirby Dach finally appears to have woken from his slumber, Cole Caufield just keeps scoring with five goals in his last six games and 22 on the season, and even Juraj Slafkovsky finally seemed to get his mojo back Monday. Slaf, who was benched by coach Martin St. Louis in Denver, set up Caufield’s goal in the first period Monday.
Unsurprisingly, fans encountered at McLean’s Pub Monday just before the Vancouver game were in a celebratory mood.
It’s not often you run into a guy wearing a Dick Duff Habs sweater, but that’s exactly what Dave Dufour was sporting at the upstairs bar at McLean’s. He said it’s because his nickname is Duff that he’s got a jersey paying tribute to the Hall of Fame winger who won two Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs and another four with the Canadiens during the 1960s. Like every other Habs fan on the planet, he’s loving this run.
“Yes I’m surprised,” Dufour said. “My first observation is that the arrival of Alexandre Carrier has completely changed the defence. He’s put all the defencemen in the right chairs. Laine has all of us on the edge of our seat every time he touches the puck and it’s the same thing with Lane Hutson. But really it’s the full engagement of all four lines that’s made the difference.
Étienne Bouchard, un fan fini of the Canadiens, is just as positive.
“I think Patrik Laine was really the spark that we needed,” said Bouchard. “We were there at Laine’s first game and it was like a big gust of fresh air for the team. I think the arrival of Laine took a lot of pressure off the top players, like (Nick) Suzuki, Caufield, Slafkovsky, and Kirby. It put the spotlight on Laine and everyone benefitted.”
Alexis Bernatchez, who was having a brew with his friend Bouchard, was just as enthused.
“The start of the season was downright catastrophic, a bit like the start of so many other recent seasons,” Bernatchez said. “Slowly but surely we’re seeing chemistry being created amongst the players. The system is coming together. The players are getting to know each other better.”
