Please explain your post:
-terrible positioning
-horrible breakouts
-overuse of the long stretch pass
-constantly give up the blueline to our opponents
-constant cycling until we pretty much lose the puck
Please please please explain how we do these 5 horrible things and end up with this record:
12-13 2nd in the east
13-14 100 pts
14-15 110 pts
13-14 Conference finals
14-15 dominating the best east team in the 2nd round
I already know your answer btw: Carey Price.
Yes it's because of Carey Price if we outplayed Tampa 5 on 5.
Not just Price no. Price was beyond any doubt the biggest and most contributing factor. Then there's Subban-Markov, Patches, Plekanec, Gallagher, Galchenyuk, you know, our talent. There's also the fact we haven't suffered that many key injuries during the seasons. That's why we finished with as many points. It's definitely not because of some savvy structured system.
You like to reference how we ''dominated'' TB. You're also an objective and knowledgeable poster right? So, were you not able to notice how the way we played versus them was completely different than how we played in the regular season?
Heck, even Therrien said it during a presser before the TB series. That they were going to work on things during practice to adapt to TB. He was running possession zone entrance drills in practice.
Just take tonight, did you watch the game? It wasn't perfect, no game ever will be, but we were much better. We dictated the play, carried the puck way more, outchanced them, outshot them, and made them chase us pretty much the whole night. That's how we should play. That's not how we played for the past two years. Still have some issues, like how Galchenyuk didn't even crack 14 minutes tonight, and his line was by far our best one, that doesn't make much sense.
Hopefully tonight was a sign of things to come though and it wasn't because we faced arguably one of the worst teams in the NHL.
When we are the ones chasing the puck, we scramble and breakdown a lot. That doesn't mean we'll lose. That's because teams are going to battle very hard to score 2 goals on Price. He's going to give the team a chance to win pretty much every single night. That's what happened the last two years.
You want to argue that the Habs have average talent compared to other teams?
You need hockey knowledge to be objective.
I said the Habs also rely on Pacio, Subban and Galch to win, I never said anything about being the most talented team in the league.
And you are this knowledgeable objective person?..Good one.
Go ahead, do it yourself, here's a list of the 16 teams in the east, classify in terms of talent:
who's the top 3-4
who's in the middle of the pack
who's the bottom 3-4
Boston Bruins
Tampa Bay Lightning
Montreal Canadiens
Pittsburgh Penguins
New York Rangers
Philadelphia Flyers
Columbus Blue Jackets
Detroit Red Wings
Washington Capitals
New Jersey Devils
Ottawa Senators
Toronto Maple Leafs
Carolina Hurricanes
New York Islanders
Florida Panthers
Buffalo Sabres
In the West, there's 3 teams that missed the playoffs last year that are more talented than the Habs
How was Mtl not in the top 4 in the East??..Mtl-TB-NYR-Pitts. Top 4 in the East. There is no doubt about it. Who else do you think was better than the Habs last year?
Eller FO% prowess is being wasted on the wing and Chucky will need to learn how to take faceoffs which he should have been doing last year which is what people fail to understand when they say but Chucky wasn't ready blablaba. Would Chucky have been ready if he had been told by management last offseason that he was going to be center the way they did this offseason? 
