HIGHLIGHTS
- The Canadiens clinched a playoff berth for the second straight season after Detroit’s 5-4 loss to Minnesota on Sunday
- Montreal sits at 100 points, tied with Buffalo for second in the Atlantic, two behind Tampa Bay
- Read below for how the Canadiens got here and where the roster stands heading into the postseason
The Canadiens are back in the playoffs. For the second year in a row, Montreal has punched its ticket to the Stanley Cup postseason.
The clinch came Sunday afternoon without the Canadiens even taking the ice. Detroit’s 5-4 loss to the Minnesota Wild eliminated the Red Wings from contention and locked Montreal in. The Canadiens’ own game against New Jersey ended in a 3-0 loss that snapped their eight-game win streak, but by that point it didn’t matter. The math was done.
Montreal is 45-22-10 with 100 points, tied with Buffalo for second in the Atlantic Division and two back of Tampa Bay. Last season, the Canadiens squeezed in as the second wild card and lost to Washington in five games. This year’s team is a different animal. This time around, they’re competing for home ice.
The roster Martin St. Louis has built around his young core is producing across the board. Nick Suzuki leads the team with 95 points (27 goals, 68 assists) in 77 games. Cole Caufield has 49 goals, second in the NHL behind only Nathan MacKinnon’s 51. He needs one more to become the first Canadien to hit 50 since Stephane Richer put up 51 in 1989-90. That’s a 36-year gap.
Lane Hutson has 74 points from the blue line, an absurd number for a second-year defenseman. Ivan Demidov, the 20-year-old rookie, has 60 points (17 goals, 43 assists) and has looked like a top-six fixture since December. Oliver Kapanen has 22 goals as a rookie and sealed the shootout winner against New Jersey on Saturday to cap the win streak at eight.
In net, Jakub Dobes has been the biggest surprise. The rookie goaltender leads all first-year netminders with 27 wins in 39 games, a 2.73 goals-against average, and a .904 save percentage. He passed both Patrick Roy and Carey Price for the most rookie wins in franchise history. That’s not a small list to top in Montreal.
Two years ago, this franchise was at the tail end of a three-year playoff drought. The rebuild years brought Caufield, Hutson, Demidov, Slafkovsky, and Kapanen through the pipeline. Now every one of them is contributing in meaningful minutes on a team that’s averaging 3.45 goals per game, fifth in the league.
During the eight-game streak that ended Sunday, the Canadiens outscored opponents 32-14 and got dominant goaltending from Dobes nearly every night. The loss to New Jersey doesn’t change the trajectory. Montreal still has six games left to sort out seeding and get Caufield his 50th.
The Canadiens haven’t won a playoff series since 2021, when they made their run to the Stanley Cup Final against Tampa Bay. This roster is younger, faster, and deeper than that group. Whether that translates to a longer spring depends on matchups and goaltending, but the foundation is there.
Montreal plays Tampa Bay on Thursday in their final regular-season divisional meeting. That game could decide second place in the Atlantic.
