Line ‘em up and knock ‘em down.
The Florida Panthers. The Tampa Bay Lightning. The Vegas Golden Knights. The Colorado Avalanche.
The last four Stanley Cup champions.
The Canadiens’ annual holiday road trip is where seasons go to die. This time, it’s when a season came to life. More than that, it was the trip when the entire rebuild began to come into focus.
Three years of hard work since first Jeff Gorton and then Kent Hughes were hired to get this legendary team back on track. Three years of meetings and contract talks and chilly mornings in icy rinks evaluating kids not yet out of high school.
Three years making deals. Three years developing players. Three years trusting a completely inexperienced young coach to coax veterans and rookies alike into backing each other, trusting each other, competing as a unit.
Three years shutting out the noise, ignoring panicky fans and click-chasing media types alike. Three years of belief in what they were doing despite the screeching over Matvei Michkov and the yowling over David Reinbacher.
It all started to come into focus with home-and-home wins over Detroit, but the Red Wings are another of those teams trying to struggle up the ladder. They were scoring, they were defending, they were getting the goaltending — and when Samuel Montembeault tired after 10 straight starts, they were able to bring up young Jakub Dobes for a start unlike any in the long and storied history of the CH: Two games, an overtime period and a shootout and a single goal allowed.
Remember when everyone sneered at Gorton and Hughes for the “in-the-mix” remarks they made before the season? Well we’re two games shy of the midpoint and the Canadiens aren’t merely in the mix, they’re a good team. Good enough to beat any team in the league.
Over the last 10 games, the Canadiens are 7-3, tied with the Maple Leafs for the best record in the Eastern Conference. Of the four teams in the west with slightly better records over that stretch, the Habs have beaten two: Colorado and the league-leading Knights.
It’s not just that they’re winning. They’re full-value for every victory. In Colorado, with a start 23 hours after their start time in Chicago, they came out and matched the Avalanche shot for shot. They worked, they hit, they blocked shots, they defended and with Cole Caufield heating up, they got the tying goal they needed and then finished it off with Dobes absolutely locked in and the Avs locked down.
Save some credit for Martin St. Louis. This is his team, he’s the coach who brought it all together.
I understand the mathematics of the playoff push but no particular number is set in stone. What matters is that the Canadiens are now in a place where they have a legitimate shot at the playoffs and of the teams in the Eastern Conference that are in roughly the same situation, this club is playing better than anyone.
Out west, they would probably be toast by now. There are too many strong clubs. But with the Rangers tumbling, Pittsburgh aging, Boston vulnerable, Columbus, Philadelphia and Detroit all decidedly meh and Buffalo out of it, their strongest competition for a wild-card spot is likely to come from along the 417 in Ottawa.
The competition is not the problem. If this team is as good as it has looked against the league’s best, then it’s a playoff team. If it’s the team that lost to Columbus and Chicago, it isn’t. I’m betting on the former. Get Patrik Laine and David Savard back in the lineup and as long as Dobes and Montembeault are playing as well as they are now, the Canadiens make the playoffs and make some noise once they get there.
Glitch time: There was a play in that painful loss against Chicago that looked like a 1980s video game.
Lane Hutson made a bad pass in the offensive zone. He was near the dot on the faceoff circle when he passed the puck to one of the Blackhawks near the blue line. As the play went back down the ice, Hutson appeared to leap forward about 15 feet in two strides — for all the world like a glitch in a video game from back in the day.
It wasn’t the first time Hutson did something on the ice that looked like a glitch and it won’t be the last. He’ll make mistakes but he’ll cover them up often as not and even on his bad nights, he’ll be more fun to watch than 98 per cent of the players in the NHL.
Heroes: Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Kaiden Guhle, Lane Hutson, Emil Heineman, Jake Evans, Samuel Montembeault, Josh Anderson, Mike Matheson, Jeff Gorton, Kent Hughes, Martin St. Louis, Laura Stacey, Abigail Boreen, Gabriela Dabrowski &&&& last but not least, Jakub Dobes.
Zeros: Junior hockey fans littering the ice with garbage and jerseys after Canada loses, the worst-in-sports NFL playoff system, Deion Sanders, Woody Johnson, Errin’ Rodgers, Wayne Gretzky, Bud Selig Jr., Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.
Now and forever.