Habs Have Great White North Filled With Hope for End of Cup Drought

The Montreal Canadiens have become the Great White North’s hope.

A 33-year Stanley Cup drought can do that to a country. The Habs are showing the grit and determination that often make up championship runs. They outlasted the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games in the first round of the playoffs, winning 2–1 on Alex Newhook’s late tally. Newhook came back in Game 7 against the favored Buffalo Sabres with an overtime snipe to clinch their matchup in that second-round series.

Next, the Canadiens forced the team with the best record in the conference to scrounge up a 3–2 overtime victory in Saturday’s second game of the Eastern Conference Final just to pull even in the series. Nikolaj Ehlers netted the winner at 3:29 of OT for his second goal of the game.

Montreal’s run to the Cup in 1993, knocking off the Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings in five games, was the last time a Canadian squad won it all.

If the Habs come through and become the Canada-based team to put an emphatic halt to this drought, it would come in a year that started out with the United States taking out Canada in the men’s gold-medal game at the Winter Olympic Games in Milano in February.

Now the Canadiens are making a push toward an icebreaker of the greatest kind for a country where the game is the national sport.

Montreal was third in the Atlantic Division and the sixth seed in the conference. The team brings a roster full of up-and-coming players and grinders who are simply finding a way to advance.

Eddie Garcia, host of “The Puck Podcast” and “Locked on Kings,” agrees that while the Habs don’t have big names, they bring a lot of fight every night. The veteran media figure is going with the experience-filled Hurricanes to advance to the Stanley Cup Final.

“I do think the Canadiens are a very exciting, good young team,” Garcia told The Epoch Times in an email. “Even after the Game 1 win, I’d still be surprised if they beat the Hurricanes.”

Montreal took the series opener 6–2 with a barrage of first-period goals that put the ’Canes on their heels. They cruised the rest of the way, but Carolina had an excuse.

“An 11-day layoff (after Carolina swept its second-round playoff matchup) seemed to have the ’Canes out of sorts in that first period, and that was the game,” Garcia said.

Garcia suggested the Canadiens might be more in line to win the Cup next season, building on a strong postseason this time out.

“Montreal is getting great experience and will be better for it. [Nick] Suzuki and [Cole] Caufield are younger vets in their prime. They have great young players like Lane Hutson, Juraj Slafkovsky, Ivan Demidov, with two young, good-looking goalies in Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler,” Garcia said.

“I still think the ’Canes win Game 2 and eventually the series in six. Yes, no superstars, but a very good team that comes at you in waves.”

The Hurricanes were one of the top teams in the NHL this season. They led the conference, piling up 113 points in the regular season behind 291 goals, the most of any team in the East.

Carolina’s top scorer in the regular season was Sebastian Aho, a 28-year-old from Finland who has scored 30 or more goals five times since his NHL career began in the 2016–2017 season.

Aho is the team’s main point-getter, but the center didn’t have a spectacular season. He scored 27 goals and 53 assists, while compiling a plus-minus of 11.

The only other offensive player in the top 50 in scoring in the NHL is Ehlers, who was ranked 49th in the league with 26 goals and 71 points.

While the Hurricanes might be the favorite to get past the Canadiens, Montreal has been the kind of team that fights until the very end.

Proof of that was the series clincher over Tampa Bay, when it managed only nine shots on goal. According to ESPN Research, the shot total was the lowest for a winning team since the stat was officially tracked during the 1959–1960 season.

An unlikely victory and certainly cause for hope.