Montreal Canadiens
Canadiens Playoff Odds Impacted By NHL Strength Of Schedule
There are 34 games left in the Montreal Canadiens schedule, and as it stands, they’re in the race to earn one of the Wild Card spots in the East.
They’re also not that far off from finishing among the bottom-10 teams in the league, but such is life in the forced parity that comes hand-in-hand with a salary-cap world.
If we all agree the glass is half full, the question becomes whether they really have a legitimate chance to pass the teams that are currently above them in the standings, which would lead to them qualifying for the playoffs for the first time since 2021.
There are a lot of factors to consider, including player health, recent trends, and, of course, the strength of schedule each team will face down the stretch of the 2024-25 season.
We will focus on the latter today.
Montreal Canadiens Strength Of Schedule (SOS)
The teams the Canadiens will have to contend with are as follows: The Tampa Bay Lightning, the Boston Bruins, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the New York Rangers, and the Ottawa Senators. There’s a chance a team below the Canadiens in the standings, such as the Philadelphia Flyers or the Detroit Red Wings, could be in the mix, so we’ll include them for good measure.
The good news is that unlike previous years, the Canadiens will not face a murderer’s row of opponents to close out the season. In fact, the Canadiens have one of the easiest strengths of schedules in the league at the moment, ranking 26 out of 32 teams. The only team in the mix for a Wild Card spot that has an easier strength of schedule is the Lightning, who own the 30th most difficult remaining SOS.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean the Canadiens will cruise to the playoffs, but it does give them an edge compared to most of their counterparts.
And when it comes to professional sports, every advantage plays its part.
On the flip side, both the Bruins and Senators, two teams that are likely to stand in the way of the Habs qualifying for the playoffs, have a reasonably easy schedule to close out the year as well.
In other words, there’s very little margin for error at this point in the season, a fact reflected by the team’s current playoff odds, which have been improving, but are yet to reach the point where Canadiens fans should plan for springtime hockey.
All Montreal Canadiens strength of schedule information via Tankathon.
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Given how well the Habs have played recently against the elite teams, and how poorly they’ve played against the also-rans, I’m not so sure an “easy” schedule down the stretch will really be that easy. Fingers crossed.
Joke ( hope) no blue uniforms pray , can remember the colours BOO !
When we review the goals for this season, it was to develop young guys and ideally be in the playoff mix and play meaningful games so they could benefit from playing with playoff like tension.
What if we instead had targeted beating the best teams in the league consistently including on the road, and having a run for over a quarter of the season where we were a top 3 team in the nhl playing the toughest schedule of the year? That would be proof of concept that the roster is competitive and capable. That would also demonstrate that young guys are developing and the team was resilient against the best.
Regardless of what happens the rest of the season, we have transitioned. The leaders of the team, both players and management expressed confidence before the season that they felt the group would be competitive, and they delivered. This experience and growth is material and cannot be taken away, and witnessing the growth of the majority of the under 25’s further supports that the big objectives for the season have been accomplished. Nobody gave them a chance to make the playoffs, the betting odds were ridiculous but here we are, one of the best stories in the league. Go Habs go!
Thanks for writing this, Marc.
For starters, the coach should start playing Dobes, the majority of the time.