The absurdity of the situation reached its boiling point after the Montreal Canadiens lost in a shootout to the last-place Chicago Blackhawks in Game 81 of their regular season.
A few games beforehand, the Canadiens, under head coach Martin St. Louis, had beaten the Detroit Red Wings in the team’s biggest game of the season (to that point), to create an eight-point cushion between them and the four remaining teams in the race for the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot. At that point, the Habs needed just three points over their last four games to clinch (or for all the teams that were still alive to miss out on three points in the standings). Fair deal.
One by one, each of those four teams bowed out, except the Columbus Blue Jackets. As the Canadiens struggled to get the points they needed, the Jackets went on a six-game winning streak to end their season, effectively forcing the Habs’ hands. They had to secure at least a point against the relative-powerhouse Carolina Hurricanes in their final game of the season or risk watching the Jackets leapfrog over them in the standings by winning in regulation over the New York Islanders the next night (which they ended up doing).
Canadiens More than In the Mix
In the minds of at least a few panic-stricken Canadiens fans, it didn’t have to come to this. Had the Habs just beaten the lowly Blackhawks, it wouldn’t have gotten to this point. Someone had to pay if they screwed this up… and failed to make the playoffs in Year 3 of their rebuild, despite the undeniable fact the team had showed significant progress in the standings for the third season in a row and, six months earlier, it would have sufficed for them simply to be “in the mix” by season’s end. St. Louis should be fired.
What a difference a single victory makes then, huh? Over a Hurricanes team, with home ice already wrapped up in Round 1, that for all intents and purposes didn’t care if they won or lost against the Canadiens to the point they rested a third of their regular roster, no less.
The fact of the matter is the predicament in which St. Louis’ Canadiens found themselves spoke more of the Blue Jackets and their resolve than the Habs and a lack of theirs. Could they have stood to beat the Blackhawks earlier this week? Sure, but context is important and the Blackhawks ended their season with a 4-1-1 record, with the one shootout loss coming against the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets.
Under normal circumstances, securing two points in three games like the Canadiens did in the lead-up to the finale against the Hurricanes would have been just mildly disappointing, but overall perfectly acceptable. But, because the Blue Jackets kept on winning, including two straight decisive wins over the Eastern Conference-leading Washington Capitals, who the Habs will face in Round 1 coincidentally enough, St. Louis was… to blame, somehow?
Related: 3 Reasons the Canadiens Can Upset the Capitals
And, now that the Canadiens have defied all odds to make the playoffs, based on early-season expectations, St. Louis is in the Jack Adams Award conversation as one of the league’s best coaches? “Of course,” this columnist wrote with sarcasm oozing out of every pore.
St. Louis Far from a Jack Adams Favourite
Now, St. Louis in all likelihood won’t win. He might not even be named a finalist. However, he definitely deserves credit for getting the Canadiens to this point, effectively guiding his players to rare, consistently linear year-over-year growth over the course of this rebuild.
Truth be told, St. Louis probably doesn’t deserve to win. He’s not without his flaws. The Canadiens consistently find themselves starting games flat-footed, which is at least on part on him, and he continually makes questionable deployment decisions. The fact he hasn’t dressed defenseman Arber Xhekaj since early April when he’ll probably have no choice but to throw the guy in cold against a Capitals team that has Tom Wilson on its roster is curious.
Still, the Canadiens don’t need to beat the Capitals for this season to be considered a huge success. Honestly, it was already arguably a success at its halfway mark for the Canadiens, and they weren’t even in a playoff spot at the time. Instead, they had simply shown a capacity for sustainable success from early December up to that point and really the end of the season. Now, St. Louis isn’t the only reason. Forward Patrik Laine, defenseman Alexandre Carrier and goalie Jakub Dobes spring to mind as players who changed the tide.
However, St. Louis is a big one. And, if all his critics have at their disposal is impatience and an inability to trust the process over the long term when the progress over the last few years has been practically palpable, it says more about them, just like the Canadiens’ must-win situation the other day said more about the Blue Jackets.
St. Louis’ Hot Seat Is Now Sufficiently Cold
Early on, St. Louis was actually on the hot seat, when the Canadiens started out 4-9-2 and were in the throes of a six-game losing streak. The reasoning then, with so many Habs injured and expectations still fairly low, was incredibly flawed. By the end of what turned out to be a winning campaign, there would have been zero justification to move on from a coach who had guided this team, now the youngest team in history to ever make the playoffs according to some sources, to a season in which they just barely missed out.
It’s honestly akin to calling for St. Louis’ dismissal were they to get swept in Round 1. That may seem crazy (and it is), but they would have been eerily similar circumstances, for the Canadiens to come all this way only to lose four straight in embarrassing fashion. What’s more intriguing to note is the Capitals just barely snuck in last year (with the same 91 points) and got swept themselves. Now look at them.
Obviously, Canadiens fans should be satisfied they are where they are. The rebuild is ahead of schedule, because, had they missed out on a playoff spot, that would have been the goal next year. Now, general manager Kent Hughes has his work cut out for him to tweak the team so that it’s built for even greater success in 2025-26, based on where they finish this spring. It’s safe to say “behind the bench” isn’t on his to-do list, though (as if it ever was).
