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Wild Card Race: Updated Montreal Canadiens Playoff Odds

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2 weeks ago

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montreal canadiens via nhl screenshot

The Montreal Canadiens were in Ottawa on Friday, looking to sweep the season series against the Senators, while also punching their ticket to the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

First off, I would like to apologize to all our loyal readers, as this will be a rather short recap. Unfortunately, my telecom provider has left me without internet for at least 24 hours, which means I’m working off a hot spot, and the connection is spotty, at best.

The goal is to be up and running by tomorrow for the game versus the Toronto Maple Leafs, and they’ve assured me the problem will be rectified by then. In other words, don’t be surprised if we’re dealing with a repeat scenario on Saturday, because they also assured me the internet would be available by Friday afternoon.

Oh, the joys of dealing with four-hour phone calls to your telecom company!

Alright, back to the stuff that matters.

The Senators were the better team on Friday, and though the Habs did manage to score two goals in the second half of the game, the early deficit was too much to overcome, leading to a 5–2 Senators win. If you would like the updated playoff odds without having to read the entire recap, go ahead and scroll down to the final segment.

Let’s dive into the highlights!

Once More Unto The Breach

As per usual, the Habs started the game without actually starting their engines.

On your marks, get set… keep getting set… more setting… Okay, we’re almost ready to go, but first, let’s take a quick 20-minute siesta.

It’s become a recurring theme this season, and we all know resilience is their calling card, but with the playoffs quickly approaching, the team will absolutely have to do a better job starting games. It’s not all up to the players, either, as Martin St-Louis also shares some of the responsibility when it comes to preparation.

It took the Senators just 28 seconds to open the scoring on Friday, and I’m not even sure if it qualifies as a top-10 poor star from the Canadiens this year.

Voltaren Works

The Sens added to their lead, establishing a three-goal advantage a little over one minute into the second period, connoting that one of Montreal’s classic come-from-behind victories would be hard to pull off this time around.

Like a classic song by Pink Floyd, the third line managed to Breathe a little life into the Canadiens, via Christian Dvorak’s 12th goal of the year. It wasn’t enough to save the Habs from the Dark Side Of the Moon, but such is life.

We should note the Habs switched things up to a certain extent, listing the team’s usual third line as their second line, which means it was actually the second line that gave the Habs a lift.

Regardless of the changes made on the lineup sheet, we can safely say the third, err, second line continues to provide the team with honest efforts, and that’s crucial down the stretch, unlike the second, err, the third line, which has struggled to provide any semblance of consistency throughout the year.

Now, that was quite simple, wasn’t it?


There He Is

Nick Suzuki was in the midst of one of his coldest streaks of the season, going almost 72 hours without registering a point for the Habs!

To be perfectly fair, there were no games in that stretch, but it’s still technically correct. And that’s the best type of correct!

However, if we’re only counting days in which Suzuki played in an NHL game, like some sort of hockey snobs, his 29th goal of the season extended his point streak to seven games.

Jokes aside, it’s incredible how well Suzuki plays on a nightly basis. Few captains have more pressure than him, not just due to his leadership position, but due to the fact that he’s involved in almost every high-end play.

The Canadiens will go as far as Suzuki can take them, that much is clear. I’m not trying to denigrate Lane Hutson either, he’s the rising tide that has improved everyone in the lineup, but there’s no denying Suzuki is always the first soldier ‘over the top‘, so to speak.

While the game itself didn’t provide much solace to Habs fans that wanted the playoff race to be over, it did offer Michael Pezzetta an opportunity to bloody his knuckles, and that’s easily his favourite activity.

Updated Montreal Canadiens Playoff Picture

If the Habs had won, they would have clinched a playoff berth, but with the loss in regulation, Montreal’s playoff odds are set to drop all the way to… wait for it…

Are you ready?

98.2 percent.

It’s a matter of when, not if they make the playoffs.

Due to the history with Ottawa, clinching the playoffs in their barn, which is always filled with Habs fans, would have added a little more spice to the rivalry, but the Habs will have yet another opportunity to clinch a playoff appearance in less than 24 hours.

They’re set to travel to Toronto to face the Maple Leafs in a classic Hockey Night in Canada matchup.

The Montreal Canadiens will be back in action on Saturday. They are facing the Maple Leafs in Toronto, with the puck drop scheduled for 7 pm ET. All Montreal Canadiens statistics are 5v5 unless otherwise noted, via Natural Stat Trick.

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Tyrone

Reasons to be excited about the playoffs:
*Praying for the Leafs annual 1st round choke job
*Demidov audition for next year
*Hutson’s brilliance
*Suzuki is Captain Clutch
*Anderson built for playoff hockey
*Our record in 1-goal games the past couple of years and leading the league in 3rd period comeback wins this year
*Bell Centre atmosphere is unbelievable

Reasons to be worried about the playoffs:
*Pathetic starts spotting teams big leads will bite us in the arse big time as teams commit to locking it down in playoff hockey. Don’t count on the comebacks happening.
*Brain farts by Matheson, Slafkovsky, etc will be far more costly
*We’re still a fairly small team overall (especially our key offensive guys). Teams will be targeting Hutson. All it’ll take is one crushing hit from Tom Wilson to snap Hutson’s collarbone or give him a concussion. Our offence will fizzle instantly if he gets knocked out of the series.
*The Leafs have finally learned that defence wins championships. A long playoff run will be sickening to suffer through.

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Dave

More dangerous for small forwards. Defencemen hit forwards more than the other way around

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Tony

Senators were the hungrier team. Sorry, but even without Tkachuk, the Sens were hitting more. Poor Gally and Anderson were the only ones going into the dirty areas, and hitting with conviction. I have no idea why, knowing that this was going to be a hard hitting chippy affair St Louis didn’t play Xhekaj in place of Struble, and Heineman on the second line. That line did absolutely nothing, and Struble may be slightly less error prone than Arber, but for all the talk about his toughness, Struble didn’t hit a thing. And poor Pezz. I think he got a couple of good upper-cuts at the end of his tilt with Hodgson, but man, did he eat two hard left jabs to start the fight. Arber would have probably engaged Mr Hodgson earlier in the game and trounced him, and without Tkachuk around Arber could have helped Anderson by laying out some big league hits which would have slowed the Sens down and made them a little more pliable. But of course we all know how Marty feels about Arber. Too bad.

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David

The Sens stepped up when needed. Looking good. Great goaltending. Montreal will b in tough spot first round against the Caps. Might even b peaking a bit early.

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Stanley

The poor starts seem to be more of a problem on the road then at home where they have 22 wins and 12 losses. The crowd at the Bell Centre seems to energize the players.

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