Why the Montreal Canadiens will lose the Stanley Cup final
And if they don't, why they'll go down as one of the worst teams in NHL history to win it
As the 2020-21 Montreal Canadiens continue to amaze the hockey world, the search for comparables continues. Some have likened this team to the Canadiens squad that upset the mighty Boston Bruins in the first round en route to an unexpected Stanley Cup triumph 50 years ago. Others are more partial to the 1986 and 1993 Canadiens, who had no business winning championships but did, on the backs of Patrick Roy and the ghosts of the old Montreal Forum.
It is to laugh. In reality, the team you’re watching right now is not even close to the equal of any of those teams. The next four-to-seven games against the Tampa Bay Lightning are going to determine one of two things: whether these Canadiens are just another bad regular-season team that made the final and lost or, if they win, one of the worst teams in league history to actually complete the miracle and hoist the Stanley Cup.
After all, the numbers don’t lie. Since the league was formed in 1917-18, an NHL team has won the Stanley Cup a total of 101 times. The only exceptions are 1919 (when the Cup final was canceled because of the Spanish Flu pandemic), 1925 (when the Victoria Cougars of the Western Canada Hockey League defeated the Canadiens in the final) and 2005 (when an owner-driven lockout wiped out the season). Of those 101 teams, only three won the Stanley Cup with points percentages worse than the .527 posted by the Canadiens this season – the 1937-38 Chicago Black Hawks (.385), the 1944-45 Toronto Maple Leafs (.520) and the 1948-49 Leafs (.475). Only two teams, the ’37-38 Black Hawks (minus-42) and the ’48-49 Maple Leafs (minus-14) finished with a worse goal differential than this season’s Canadiens (minus-9). No team has ever won the Stanley Cup after finishing worse than 13th in the NHL standings. The Canadiens were 18th in 2020-21.
The 1971 Canadiens? You mean the team that boasted 10 future Hall of Famers, the most of any team that has won the Stanley Cup? And another 11 players who were sucking on the fumes of the ‘Forgotten Dynasty’ of the 1960s when the Canadiens won four Stanley Cups in five years? Not even close.
Let’s go, then, to the 1986 Canadiens. While its points percentage of .544 is only slightly better than this season’s Habs, that team had five future Hall of Famers of its own. And that doesn’t even include leading scorer Mats Naslund, who scored 110 points in 80 games that season. This year’s leading scorer, Tyler Toffoli, would have had 69 points pro-rated over a full season.
So how about the 1993 Cup champions? Forget it. That team finished sixth overall and had 102 points. The second-overall Boston Bruins and fourth-overall Quebec Nordiques were in their division and just five points separated the third-overall Blackhawks and seventh-overall Vancouver Canucks.
Really, when you look at it, not enough people are talking about what a monumental upset it would be if the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in 2021. After getting off to a blazing 7-1-2 start in the highly dubious North Division, the Canadiens limped to a 17-20-9 record the rest of the way. Including the last five games of the regular season, all of them losses, by the time they found themselves down 3-1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs, they had lost eight of nine games. Their goaltending was a mess, they were 23rd in the league at killing penalties, 18th in goals-against per game and 25th in faceoff percentage. If not for a brutal start and a COVID-19 outbreak for the Canucks and a terrible season for the underachieving Calgary Flames, the Canadiens might not have even made the playoffs in 2020-21. Who knows? They might miss them in ’21-22, when they rejoin the Lightning, Bruins, Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers in the Atlantic Division. With the Canadiens, that’s five teams right there, and only four are going to the playoffs.
The list isn’t terribly long, but there are a good number of teams that have gotten as far as the Canadiens have this season and been just as bad, or worse. The 1981 and ’91 Minnesota North Stars were pretty putrid, as were the 1982 and ’94 Canucks. The 1993 Los Angeles Kings were pretty comparable to this Montreal team, with the notable exception being that they had Wayne Gretzky.
This 2020-21 team has only two sure-fire Hall of Famers in Price and Cole Caufield (kidding). If you believe the guy in the Tim Horton’s commercial, perennial all-star Shea Weber is going to the Hall of Fame first ballot, baby. Eric Staal and Corey Perry will certainly improve their Hall of Fame prospects if they win the second Stanley Cup of their careers.
But the fact is, this Canadiens club is, at this point, among a group of teams that punched way, way above its weight for three rounds of the playoffs. Almost all of them were hit with a dose of cold reality when the spotlight shone the brightest. That’s why it will be so difficult for them to win this thing, particularly when they’re taking on the defending Stanley Cup champions. It will also be a reason for their fans to riot, er, dance in the streets again if they manage to make history and pull off an upset for the ages.