Season Review: Montreal Canadiens

Well, now that we're gearing toward the Stanley Cup Finals, we will be reviewing the seasons of teams as they're eliminated from the playoffs. Obviously, the last team reviewed will be the one that wins the Cup.

Now the runner-ups in the Eastern Conference Finals: The Montreal Canadiens.

Season expectations: Though the diehard Montreal faithful would have you believe they would be instant Cup contenders, many people were somewhat skeptical about how their team would perform. The greatest sources of derision came from the signing of Mike Cammalleri (who's 5'9") to play with Brian Gionta (5'7") and Scott Gomez (who's billed at 5'11"... maybe on skates...) to form their first line. However, the team from top to bottom had players that were either of the fleet, small, skilled mold or the big, phyiscal, strong mode; not to mention two young and very talented goaltenders. Jacques Martin was acquired after three losing seasons for the Florida Panthers to instill a defensive system for the team to use and with any luck, Montreal could go back to being Les Glorieux all over again.

My prediction: I predicted that Montreal would finish second in the Northeast Division and fifth overall in the Eastern Conference.

The truth: The team finished fourth and eighth respectively. After two intense series that saw them eliminate the President's Trophy Washington Capitals and the defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins, the team was eliminated from the Eastern Conference Finals in five games by the Philadelphia Flyers.

What went right?: Jaroslav Halak, Jaroslav Halak, Jaroslav Halak. That had to be printed three times. When the team looked like shark fodder, Halak pulled through with some brilliant performances. Other than that, Tomas Plekanec lead the team in points during the regular season, Cammelleri delivered during the playoffs. Andrei Markov was kicking ass before going down with injury while the team's first line were not dynamic offensively, but played sound two-way hockey. Glen Metropolit may not be a household name, but he did very well in his role with the Habs (and should be re-signed, IMO.) The brightest spot on the horizon? That would be PK Subban; who put up 8 points in 14 playoff games and finished with a +2, which was a team best in the playoffs.

What went wrong?: +2 is someone's best on the team during the playoffs. When Halak had rough outings (see, Game 2 of this past series) the Canadiens became ineffective. They managed to have enough gusto to beat out two excellent teams, but when it came time to play a sixth-seeded team they looked confused and lost. Overall, Philadelphia managed to use their intimidation factor to their advantage and the end result was them dominating the Habs.

So what's next?: This doesn't look like an easy off-season for the Habs. They have $45.7M locked up in salaries and need to qualify two goaltenders (one of which may bolt to Europe or hold out for more money), a slew of young forwards seeking raises, and risk losing their leading scorer to free agency. It's not impossible considering that they can take all their returning defensemen, plus Subban, and make that work but it won't be simple either. It should be interesting to see what happens starting July.