BROSSARD, Que. — I asked the leaders of the Canadiens this one question at the start of each of the past two training camps prior to this one: If you had to pinpoint one reason this team can win the Stanley Cup this year, what would it be?
Invariably, with the team entrenched in a reset, and with players not suffering delusions of grandeur, the answers that came back to me were somewhat predictable. Without getting too deep into them — because we’re at the start of a new year and want to be looking forward instead — they were some iteration of, “Because anything can happen,” or, as Carey Price put it to me in the fall of 2019, “Because crazier things have happened.”
Maybe a tumble to 24th place in the 2020 standings should’ve been foreseeable right then and there.
I digress …
The Canadiens had come off a 96-point season — an output that had them just miss the playoffs but one that would’ve secured them a spot in 17 of the 20 prior seasons — and I thought that there was a slight chance I might get a few different answers from the ones I got in fall of 2018. I thought Price or Shea Weber might be able to point to some internal reason the Canadiens could pull off the improbable and win their 25th Cup.
When neither did, I thought that it was reasonable to assume they would prefer to temper expectations, and then perhaps exceed them rather than heaping unnecessary pressure onto a team that had yet to prove anything.
Still, both Weber and Price knew what the Canadiens had last season, and they knew it wasn’t enough. And there was nothing they could’ve said that would’ve been perceived as genuine belief, so they answered honestly, giving me a “why not” instead of “here’s why.”
It’s funny how much has changed since then, and how 20-odd days of surprisingly good August hockey from the Canadiens began to inspire belief.
Then Marc Bergevin traded for and signed Jake Allen and Joel Edmundson, traded Max Domi for Josh Anderson and signed Anderson to a long-term extension, signed Tyler Toffoli as an unrestricted free agent, and added high-calibre depth in Michael Frolik and Corey Perry.
“I think (the players) sent me a message, so (I) did what (I) had to do,” Bergevin said on Sunday.
Sure, he was talking about Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi — two emerging centremen who played so well in the post-season against Pittsburgh and Philadelphia that Bergevin later said they’d be core pieces to build around for the next 10 or 15 years.
But he was also talking about 33-year-old Price and 35-year-old Weber, who played like the future Hall of Famers we know them to be.
The message Bergevin took from them was: “Give this team a real chance to win.”
Now, it was one thing to hear Bergevin say on Sunday that he believes this group can do that, that they “mean business,” that they’re “here to win,” and that they can “play any way you want to play.” He built this team and spent every dollar available to him, and then some. If he doesn’t believe, no one will.
But it was something else to hear Canadiens coach Claude Julien say after the very first practice at training camp, “I don’t think there’s any reason to believe we can’t make it all the way.”
Julien qualified that statement by saying it would depend on the team’s overall health and the luck involved in avoiding major injuries to core pieces, but he still said it. He said it after mentioning that his expectations were in line with Bergevin’s and with everyone else’s on the team.
And here is how Price answered that same question I asked him at the beginning of the last two camps:
“We have more experience. We have young guys that learned what it’s like to play in the playoffs last season, and you can’t buy experience. We made some great additions in the off-season, which is going to help us move forward.”
And that was just moments after Weber responded this way:
“I think that we were so close in Toronto. And even though people doubted us and might not think that we were that close, we believe we were that close. And we’ve made some additions that we think are going to help going forward, and that should only better our chances. Being that close in the summer and getting those guys to come in — it should only help us.”
Without overemphasizing the relevance of these statements — because winning is done on the ice and not in the press room — being a winning team does start with this mentality. It sure beats the anything-is-possible or crazier-things-have-happened mentality.
Not that anything is guaranteed for these Canadiens.
They need to integrate eight new players over an abbreviated training camp, without the benefit of exhibition and ahead of a condensed schedule that will see them play the same six teams over and over again until 56 games are in the books.
It’s going to be playoff-style hockey through and through, and that’s before the toughest tournament in team sports begins.
“It’s going to get heated at some points,” Price said.
Objectively, it’s going to be scorching at most points.
But Price believes the Canadiens will persevere.
“We all recognize the challenge in front of us,” Julien said before opining that the new all-Canadian North Division will be as — if not more — competitive than the Atlantic Division the Canadiens typically play in.
But the coach also talked about the Canadiens possessing the size, grit and speed to handle all of that.
Weber talked about the challenges in the way of him bringing the team together ahead of Jan. 13 in Toronto — with COVID-19 regulations impeding his ability to host team-bonding events away from the rink.
But he also vaunted the experience of the newcomers — five of them Stanley Cup winners — as an asset that will help the Canadiens clear that hurdle.
“Those guys have been there and won championships,” Weber said. “They know what it takes, and they can bleed that information down to our youth and a lot of guys.”
Is the pressure on? You bet.
But as Julien said, “In the situation we’re in, with a good team that feels confident, instead of feeling pressure it’s about being excited about the opportunity. You have to share that with the team and hope it thinks the same way.”
“We’re excited to have the opportunity that’s been given to us,” Julien added. “We’re excited about the work Marc did this off-season to get players that make our team even more competitive. It’s up to us to take advantage of that, and we’re more excited than we are feeling under pressure …
“This is a great opportunity and you kinda make sure your whole team thinks the same way. I think that becomes contagious.”
So does belief.
It’s obvious the Canadiens have it right now, and that’s a good start.
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