The Montreal Canadiens are the NHL’s most storied franchise, with a whopping 24 Stanley Cups to their name. In fact, such has been their dominance over the years, the Quebec-based outfit has won the championship 11 times more than the second-placed Toronto Maple Leafs and over twice as many times as the USA’s best-ranked team, the Detroit Red Wings. However, over the last few campaigns, they have become a shadow of their former selves.
Last term, the Bell Centre side managed just 30 wins all season, leaving them planted at the foot of the Atlantic Division for the third straight season and with the fourth-worst record in the entire league. The upcoming close season will be integral to any future successes that the Canadiens may have and they are currently scheduled to be at number five on the 2024 draft board. But while they are looking ahead to hopefully bringing in someone like Trevor Connelly or Sam Dickinson, there’s the small matter of the 2024 NHL Playoffs.
The action has reached its latter stages and several conference semifinals could go either way. The Florida Panthers currently hold a slender one-game lead over the Boston Celtics, while the president’s trophy-winning New York Rangers hold the same lead over the Carolina Hurricanes. Meanwhile, the all-Canadian affair between the Vancouver Canucks and the Edmonton Oilers is currently locked at two games apiece. The latest NHL odds to win the Stanley Cup make the aforementioned Panthers the +230 favourites to go all this way this year, righting the wrongs of last term, when they were beaten in the finals by the Vegas Golden Knights.
For the Canadiens, however, they can only look on with envy. Since their last championship win in 1993, the team has encountered numerous hurdles on their quest for another title, coming tantalizingly close but ultimately falling short of the prize. Here is the closest they have come in the last three decades.
A Surprising Conference Finals Run
14 years ago, they entered the playoffs as an eighth-seeded rank outsider, but despite that, they managed to defy their lowly chance at victory to make an unexpected and exhilarating run to the Eastern Conference Finals. The team showcased remarkable resilience, first overturning a 3-1 series deficit against the president’s trophy-winning Washington Capitals in the opening round, and then defeating the defending champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins, in a hard-fought seven-game series in the second round.
Once those two heavy hitters – spearheaded by Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby respectively – had been swept aside, the draw seemingly opened up and championship glory was a very real possibility. But just when they were starting to dream of the trophy, their campaign came to a screeching halt against the Philadelphia Flyers in the Conference Finals.
The Wells Fargo Center outfit was the seventh seed heading into the postseason, just one rank higher than the Habs. As such, many thought that the contest was a genuine 50/50 that could go either way, unlike the Canadiens’ two previous series, which they were heavy underdogs in. However, once Philly won the first two games by a combined score of nine goals to nil, the writing was on the wall. They ultimately triumphed in five, while Montreal had to go back to the drawing board after yet another playoff heartache.
Heartbreak Against the New York Rangers
Four years later, the Canadiens once again found themselves deep in the playoffs. The 2013/14 season had its share of dramatic moments, including a thrilling second-round victory over the Boston Bruins, a team that had finished the regular season at the top of the league standings. But The Habs’ triumph over them in seven games set the stage for an Eastern Conference Finals matchup against the New York Rangers.
The series was marred by a significant setback for the Canadiens when star goaltender Carey Price was injured in the opening game following a collision. Without their marquee netminder, they battled fiercely but ultimately succumbed to the Big Apple outfit in six games. This loss was a bitter pill to swallow, particularly because the Canadiens had shown they could compete with the best, only to be undone by an untimely injury to their most crucial player.
A Long-Awaited Return to the Stanley Cup Finals
Perhaps the closest the Canadiens have come to recapturing their former glory since 1993 occurred during the pandemic-impacted 2020/21 NHL season. Entering the playoffs as the fourth seed in the North Division, few predicted their remarkable run to the Stanley Cup Finals. The team overcame their rival Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round, rallying from a 3-1 series deficit. They then swept the Winnipeg Jets in the second round before defeating the Vegas Golden Knights in six games to claim the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl as Western Conference champions – a temporary realignment due to global events.
The Stanley Cup Finals pitted the Habs against the defending champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Despite a spirited effort, including a thrilling overtime victory in Game 4 to avoid a sweep, the Canadiens ultimately fell in five. This run was highlighted by the emergence of young stars like Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, as well as the veteran leadership of Price, who managed to put his injury woes of six years prior firmly in the rearview mirror with a bucketload of stellar displays.