The Habs made the playoffs many times between 2000 and 2020, but came up short because – as the cliche goes – they never were 'Built For The Playoffs'. Too small, too soft.
And then came the outlier of all outliers, the 2020/21 Habs roster that shocked the hockey world by going all the way to the Finals. Many dismissed the team as a 'fluke' in a fluke Covid season, but look again – yes, the divisions were different and the outcome unexpected, but this team didn't benefit from any flukes. In fact, they had the worst schedule and some of the worst injury luck in the league.
What they DID have was a team that was, finally, "Built For The Playoffs".
Look at that defence. Weber, Petry, Chiarot, Edmundson, Kulak (remember him?) and Romanov. That's a really good blend of size, toughness, and skill. After countless playoffs of being bullied, suddenly it was the Habs doing the bullying. Nothing fluky there – that's what a playoff defence should look like.
Add some dude named Carey Price in nets, and you have the backbone of a very solid playoff team.
The weak spot was the offence (as usual), but 2021 saw the emergence of these new kids, Suzuki and Caufield, and we acquired two new vets, Toffoli and Perry. Not coincidentally, those four players were our top forwards. Add them to our existing group of strong two-way players and it was enough... almost.
So why does that 2020/21 team get dismissed?
1) The Canadian Division. Yeah, the Covid divisions were weird, but the quality of hockey was no different than other different divisions over the decades. Just eight years earlier Tampa and Montreal were in different divisions (remember the Northeast and Southeast divisions?). The claim that the Canadian division was weak is total BS. Toronto and Edmonton were annual powerhouses. Winnipeg and Calgary were strong teams, and Vancouver was on the bubble. The only weak Canadian team was Ottawa. While our division didn't have Tampa or Vegas (ahem... didn't we beat them?), we didn't have two or three terrible teams that were even worse than Ottawa.
2) Montreal was 18th in the league. Except there was no 'league'. You can't compare point totals of teams across different divisions that never played each other. Montreal made the playoffs the usual way – by finishing high enough within their division. And remember the injuries! Price, Weber, Gallagher, Tatar, a few more – many of our top players were out for six weeks prior to the playoffs. Without that insane compressed schedule and ensuing injuries, we probably finish much higher.
3) Marc Bergevin. It was a desperate season for a desperate GM. Bergevin threw everything at the roster in a last-gasp to save his job. It was too little, too late, of course, but still.... Corey Perry, Tyler Toffoli, Eric Staal, Shea Weber, Carey Price. I mean... that's pretty cool, even if it could never last! He took a gamble on new guys, he hoped his current guys would step up, and he banked on new guys Suzuki, Caufield, Kotkaniemi to contribute. And they did, all the way through three playoff series. Call him lucky, but it's no luckier than any other unexpected Cinderella team. You still have to be good to get that far, and the 2020/21 Habs were, despite everything, good.
4) From the Finals to First-Overall Pick: 2022's epic failure short-circuited whatever credibility the 2021 team had. But one should have nothing to do with the other. The following year we lost Price, Weber, Perry, Toffoli, Petry, Danault, Lehkonen, etc.. Bergevin was gone, and with him went any warm afterglow of that one great run. I get it, but it's a shame that roster will be forever associated with Bergevin's failure, rather than appreciated for what it was on the ice.
And then came the outlier of all outliers, the 2020/21 Habs roster that shocked the hockey world by going all the way to the Finals. Many dismissed the team as a 'fluke' in a fluke Covid season, but look again – yes, the divisions were different and the outcome unexpected, but this team didn't benefit from any flukes. In fact, they had the worst schedule and some of the worst injury luck in the league.
What they DID have was a team that was, finally, "Built For The Playoffs".
Look at that defence. Weber, Petry, Chiarot, Edmundson, Kulak (remember him?) and Romanov. That's a really good blend of size, toughness, and skill. After countless playoffs of being bullied, suddenly it was the Habs doing the bullying. Nothing fluky there – that's what a playoff defence should look like.
Add some dude named Carey Price in nets, and you have the backbone of a very solid playoff team.
The weak spot was the offence (as usual), but 2021 saw the emergence of these new kids, Suzuki and Caufield, and we acquired two new vets, Toffoli and Perry. Not coincidentally, those four players were our top forwards. Add them to our existing group of strong two-way players and it was enough... almost.
So why does that 2020/21 team get dismissed?
1) The Canadian Division. Yeah, the Covid divisions were weird, but the quality of hockey was no different than other different divisions over the decades. Just eight years earlier Tampa and Montreal were in different divisions (remember the Northeast and Southeast divisions?). The claim that the Canadian division was weak is total BS. Toronto and Edmonton were annual powerhouses. Winnipeg and Calgary were strong teams, and Vancouver was on the bubble. The only weak Canadian team was Ottawa. While our division didn't have Tampa or Vegas (ahem... didn't we beat them?), we didn't have two or three terrible teams that were even worse than Ottawa.
2) Montreal was 18th in the league. Except there was no 'league'. You can't compare point totals of teams across different divisions that never played each other. Montreal made the playoffs the usual way – by finishing high enough within their division. And remember the injuries! Price, Weber, Gallagher, Tatar, a few more – many of our top players were out for six weeks prior to the playoffs. Without that insane compressed schedule and ensuing injuries, we probably finish much higher.
3) Marc Bergevin. It was a desperate season for a desperate GM. Bergevin threw everything at the roster in a last-gasp to save his job. It was too little, too late, of course, but still.... Corey Perry, Tyler Toffoli, Eric Staal, Shea Weber, Carey Price. I mean... that's pretty cool, even if it could never last! He took a gamble on new guys, he hoped his current guys would step up, and he banked on new guys Suzuki, Caufield, Kotkaniemi to contribute. And they did, all the way through three playoff series. Call him lucky, but it's no luckier than any other unexpected Cinderella team. You still have to be good to get that far, and the 2020/21 Habs were, despite everything, good.
4) From the Finals to First-Overall Pick: 2022's epic failure short-circuited whatever credibility the 2021 team had. But one should have nothing to do with the other. The following year we lost Price, Weber, Perry, Toffoli, Petry, Danault, Lehkonen, etc.. Bergevin was gone, and with him went any warm afterglow of that one great run. I get it, but it's a shame that roster will be forever associated with Bergevin's failure, rather than appreciated for what it was on the ice.
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