MONTREAL — As the Montreal Canadiens were beating the Florida Panthers by a score of 3-0 before Thursday’s game at the Bell Centre was 14 minutes old, you couldn’t help but think of how much has changed for both teams over the span of a year.
It was 365 days ago that the Canadiens were playing out the string in a lost season while the Panthers were readying themselves for a playoff appearance for just the second time in 15 years. The team in bleu, blanc et rouge had wilted in goaltender Carey Price’s 70-game absence, eventually finishing 22nd in the standings while icing half a roster that was virtually unrecognizable. Their counterparts were well on their way towards capturing their first Atlantic Division title.
But on this night, with eight players and a head coach on their side who hadn’t been there for last season’s debacle, the Canadiens clinched a playoff spot thanks to Price’s 31 saves in a 6-2 win that officially ended Florida’s playoff bid.
And as cameras panned to Canadiens owner Geoff Moslon, who watched his team celebrate its accomplishment, words from his open letter to fans following 2015-16’s disappointment came to mind.
“When you have a disappointing season like the one we just had, no stone can be left unturned in looking for ways to improve,” he wrote on April 11, 2016. “You have my full commitment that we will do everything possible to improve our team.”
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Everything possible included trading P.K. Subban for Shea Weber, signing dynamic forward Alexander Radulov—who had two assists in Thursday’s game to bring his season total to 51 points—and eventually firing coach Michel Therrien to hire Claude Julien.
When we caught up with Molson after the game, he was smiling from ear to ear.
“It was great to see this team come together and make their way through adversity and make the playoffs,” he said before offering a thought on what comes next in the process.
“I think it’s a full team and they get along together as a team, and there’s four lines and six defencemen and a goalie that are going to go out there and go to war for each other.”
It’s a process that, at the beginning of the season, most people assumed the Panthers would be going through again.
Third-stringer Reto Berra stood in for injured Panthers goalies Roberto Luongo and James Reimer while Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad — who were arguably most responsible for last year’s success — also sat out with injuries. Coach Tom Rowe looked on from the part of the bench Gerard Gallant had occupied for last year’s fabled run, this destiny seemed fitting.
The Panthers appeared disengaged and disorganized on Thursday—as they had on too many occasions this season. The two losses suffered to Buffalo and Toronto earlier this week had brought the team’s frustration to the surface. It boiled over in a rough affair with Montreal.
The plan, according to Rowe, was to try to stay positive.
“They’re saying it (positive things) on the bench, they’re saying it in the room,” he said.
But they weren’t doing it on the ice.
“It’s hard to motivate yourself to play when you’re so far out of it and looking in,” said Canadiens defenceman Nathan Beaulieu, who notched two assists on Thursday and had little desire to revisit last year’s disappointment any further.
“It’s a rewarding feeling to be in, knowing what it felt like last year,” he said.
Having gotten this part out of the way, the Canadiens can immediately shift their focus to what they must do to make it to their ultimate goal of winning the Stanley Cup.
Julien’s a believer.
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“I think, first of all, we know we’ve got a great goaltender,” he said. “What we have right now that I really like is I think [GM] Marc [Bergevin] did a great job to get some depth. I know when you go through the playoffs there’s all kinds of injuries and that kind of stuff, and you’ve seen me rotate guys in and out and I don’t think anybody so far has disappointed anybody.”
There are some aspects of the team’s game that will require fine-tuning over five remaining contests in the regular season.
You have to figure a lot of work will go into getting Montreal’s power play back into the top 10. Attention to detail on faceoffs, where the team has struggled throughout the season, will be an area of focus as well. And finding a way to create consistent offence, after spending most of the season near the bottom third of the league in scoring, will be the biggest challenge.
But all of that is on hold—at least until the team gets back to work on Saturday.
In the meantime, this accomplishment is worth savouring.
“It’s a good feeling,” said Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty, who scored his 35th goal of the season. “Since the final buzzer went last year, this is what we made up our minds we had to do. Through all the adversity we’ve been able to come out and put together 77 good games. We’re proud of what we accomplished.”
