A Look at the 2020-21 Montréal Canadiens

Normally, I feature Stanley Cup Champions in my stories, but the NHL has been known for some of the craziest, most unexpected, and most memorable Cinderella runs in sports. We are currently in the midst of one with the Florida Panthers, literally the worst of this season's playoff teams, reaching the Stanley Cup Final. The run has been amazing, and it could result in the Panthers reacing the top of the proverbial mountain. However, while the team mentioned in this story did come up short, they did give us something to make us smile during a really tough period.

To properly tell the story of the Montréal Canadiens' wild run in 2021, we have to go back a season before that one. The Canadiens entered the 2019-2020 season coming of a campaign that saw them miss the playoffs by just two points. The team last reached the playoffs in the 2016-17 season, the memorable year that saw them win the Atlantic Division but get ousted in Round 1 by the wild-card New York Rangers, while the star defenseman they traded, P.K. Subban, reached the Stanley Cup Final with the Nashville Predators. The GM of the team was Marc Bergevin, and the 2019-20 season was his eighth in that position. He needed a good season, or else he'd be fired, yet the Canadiens struggled big time.

Then on March 12, 2020, the world stopped.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit us big time. Everything came to a halt, and that included the sports world, but months later, the plan for a continuation was announced. The regular season was over. Regarding the playoffs, the top 12 teams in each conference qualify, while the seven worst teams in the league would be in the draft lottery. The top four teams in each conference get automatic spots in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but they would play Round Robin games for seeding. As for the other eight teams in each conference, they would be seeded #5-#12 and face each other in a best-of-five Qualifying Round for the remaining eight overall spots. So how did the Habs fare entering the pause? 31-31-9, a .500 record. Yet it was just enough to finished 12th in the Eastern Conference. They barely made it.

The Habs actually made the most of it; winning the Qualifying Round over, of all teams, the Pittsburgh Penguins (four games), but the Philadelphia Flyers beat them in Round 1. Even so, a very good show for a team who was the worst team in the modified playoffs.

So what would they do for an encore? Oh man!

The 2020-21 season ended up being shortened because the pandemic was still at its height. A 56-game season started on January 13, 2021, and to cut down on travel, the teams were placed in four localized divisions. Regarding the Canadiens, they were placed in the all-Canadian North Division, which was subjected to so much ridicule all season ("The teams suck," "The division's crap," "American teams would blow them out"). The Canadiens had another up and down season, but it did end with them qualifying for the playoffs again. The shortened season brought back the original divisional playoff format from the 1980s and the early 1990s, with the top four teams in each division qualifying. The Canadiens had another tough campaign, going 24-21-11, but that record was just enough to finish fourth in the North Division.

Now we all recall how no one thought much of the Habs entering this year's playoffs, especially since they would be facing the Toronto Maple Leafs in the North Division Semifinals. One talking head was quoted as saying, "I don't believe the Canadiens will even win one game in that series." That one win came in Game One, but they would lose the next three in the series. However, that's when things picked up. Game Five saw the Habs win in OT; a Nick Suzuki goal in the first minute. Game Six saw them win in OT again, this time it was Jesperi Kotkaniemi who won it--one of only two shots the team had in a long overtime period. Game Seven was all Habs, they won 3-1 and only gave up the Leafs goal within the final minute of regulation.

The Habs advanced to the North Division Final, where they faced off the Winnipeg Jets, who had swept the Edmonton Oilers to advance. I don't recall if the Habs were being underestimated in that series, but I know this much, there wasn't time to doubt them. A four game sweep, just like that. The Canadiens were part of the Final Four for the first time since 2014, but when the format was announced, the anti-North Division sentiment was doubled down. The format guaranteed that a Canadian team would be in the third round, but according to talking heads, this was the dead end for the surviving Canadian team. After all, they couldn't hang with the American teams. "They'd get killed in the third round," they said.

Yeah, about that.

The Canadiens faced off against the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup Semifinals, and true to the perceived form, Vegas took Game One. However, the Habs would take Games Two and Three to go up 2-1, with Game Three being an OT win thanks to Josh Anderson. The Knights evened things up with a Game Four OT win of their own, but when the series went back to Vegas, the Canadiens totally dominated Marc-Andre Fleury and returned to Montréal with a 3-2 series lead. Game Six needed overtime again, and this time, while Anderson did have possession of the puck, it ended up on the stick of Artturi Lehkonen, who shot it past Robin Lehner.

For the first time since 1993, the Canadiens reached the Stanley Cup Final, ousting the immensely heavily favored Golden Knights in six games. They were four wins away from their 25th Stanley Cup in franchise history, but their opponents? None other than the Tampa Bay Lightning, who were looking to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions. Now, as amazing as the Canadiens' run was, as amazing as it was to see the team scratch and claw their way to an improbable run, I knew this team was not going to beat the Lightning. Sure enough, I was right. Tampa Bay easily took the first three games of the Final, and while Josh Anderson scored in OT in Game Four to break the brooms, they couldn't build on that in Game Five.

The 2020-21 Montréal Canadiens had a very entertaining group of good young players, led by Nick Suzuki. The young captain had 16 points in their playoff run, with seven of those 16 points being goals. Tyler Toffoli was second on the team with 14 points (5 G/9 A), and Cole Caufield was close behind with 12 points (4 G/8 A). But let's talk about some of the unsung heroes of this crazy run. First off, Josh Anderson. He only had six points, but five of them were goals, and two of the goals were OT winners--including one in Game Four of the Cup Final. Jesperi Kotkaniemi's OT winner in Game Six against the Leafs was one of five he scored, and he ended up with eight points total. And then there's Artturi Lehkonen. He only had three goals during their run, with one of them being the OT winner that sent the Habs to the Final--back when Lehkonen scoring clutch playoff goals was a new concept.

It was said that the Canadiens wouldn't win one playoff game in 2021. They ended up winning thirteen of them. It was also said that the surviving Canadian team would get destroyed by an American team in the third round. That's half true, they did get destroyed by an American team, but it was in the fourth round. The Canadiens also made history that year. While there were no conferences that season, it had been announced for in the Cup Semis, the Golden Knights and the Canadiens would play for the Clarence Campbell Bowl, while the other series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the New York Islanders would be for the Prince of Wales Trophy. As a result of the results of the Semifinals, the Canadiens became the first and only Eastern Conference team to win the Campbell Bowl--a Western Conference Trophy.

A lot of notable names from that run ended up elsewhere after that season. Corey Perry went to the Tampa Bay Lightning during that offseason. Phillip Danault is now with the Los Angeles Kings, while Ben Chiarot went to the Florida Panthers, and is now with the Detroit Red Wings. Eric Staal is now part of this year's Cinderella Panthers team, and--again--then there's Artturi Lehkonen. Lehkonen was traded to the Colorado Avalanche during the deadline, and he ended up playing a huge role in the team's Stanley Cup Championship in 2022.

One more thing. While the Panthers' run inspired me to write about this, I was also inspired by another factor. A lot of hockey fans have been dismissing what has been known as the "COVID seasons" of the NHL: the 2019-2020 season that was paused and followed by a modified postseason played in two Canadian "bubbles," and the shortened 2020-21 season that included localized divisions. These fans see those seasons and (especially) the playoffs that followed as "not real"; saying that the outcomes wouldn't have happened in a "real season." This includes the Canadiens' run; basically fans believe that the team basically had a horseshoe up their keister and wasn't really that good. That's just disrespectful.

There were many reasons why I enjoyed the Canadiens's 2021 Cinderella run, but the main reason comes in the form of three simple words: we needed this. The COVID-19 pandemic was at a terrible height during 2020 and 2021; we were in an environment where people were dying at a high rate of a deadly virus, and a lot of things had to be closed down for our safety. It was the toughest of times, and I truly believe that the Canadiens' run was the spark that brightened things for all of society. It definitely lifted my spirits as a hockey fan. The 2020-21 Canadiens earned their stripes that year. They may not have won the Cup that year, but even so, this run was one of the best that I had ever seen, and I will continue to remember that Cinderella run with the fondness and awe, and the pomp and circumstance, that it truly deserves.