The Montreal Canadiens have never been accused of being a boring franchise. This series is a look back at the moments that made you throw your hands up, lose your mind, ugly cry, hold your breath, scratch your head, and cheer so loudly you scared the dog … sometimes all at once. If you were there the first time around, you know. If you weren’t, hop in the DeLorean cause we’re going back in time.
The 2021 Playoff Run That Was
Every spring, some guy with a podcast and a grudge rolls out the same tired “The Canadiens only made it to the playoffs because of the COVID format.” And every spring, Habs fans have to suppress the urge to flip a table. So let’s deal with this once and move on. Yes, the divisions were realigned. Yes, it was a weird season. But lest we forget that the Habs clawed their way back from 3–1 down against a Toronto team that had been waiting 17 years to win a single playoff series that was led by their saviours Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, swept the Winnipeg Jets in the second round, caused some serious nail-biting overtimes against the Vegas Golden Knights, and made it to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1993.
It all started against the Toronto Maple Leafs, because of course it did. By the time Montreal was down 3–1 in the series, the hockey world had already written the obituary. It looked like the Leafs were finally going to make it past the first round, and Toronto was already planning the parade route.
That was until Games 5 and 6 gave us the kind of matches that made your heart do things your doctor wouldn’t approve of. In Game 5, rookie Cole Caufield got involved and Nick Suzuki finished the job in overtime. Now the Leafs confidence starts to look more like panic. In Game 6, Corey Perry did Corey Perry things, showing us exactly why he was brought on for a one-year contract back in December before Jesperi Kotkaniemi skated into overtime and ended it. Montreal became the first team in NHL history to surrender a multi-goal third-period lead in consecutive playoff games when facing elimination — and win them both.
By the time Game 7 rolled around, our favourite pest who constantly got batted around like a pinball, Brendan Gallagher, set the tone, deciding it was time to open a game with a goal off a Marner turnover. Carey Price stood on his head (as per usual), stopping 30 shots to win the series with a score of 3-1. The Leafs totally choked, the parade was called off, and Habs were off to the second round.
After a sweep of the Jets, the Canadiens prepared to take on the Golden Knights. Vegas took Game 1 and looked like they might just bully their way through after a 4-1 score, but Montreal had other plans. In Game 3, Marc-André Fleury misplayed the puck behind his own net with under two minutes left, handing it directly to Josh Anderson, who tied it up and then came back in OT to finish the job. In Game 6, with the series on the line, Artturi Lehkonen swooped in with an overtime goal to send Montreal to the Stanley Cup Final.
Montreal won 11 of 13 playoff games since being left for dead against Toronto, and up next was their final level to beat the Big Boss and rescue the princess … or take home the Cup. The foe was the reigning Stanley Cup champs, the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Habs faced a 3-0 deficit and it looked like the inevitable was coming … until Anderson came in with the biggest clutch goal of his career in Game 4 overtime, keeping the dream alive.
But gum-chomping Jon Cooper and crew were in no mood to play a part in this Cinderella story and slammed the door shut in Game 5 with a heartbreaking 1-0 score that brought an end to the dance.
That 2021 roster tells you everything you need to know about how all of this was even possible. Gallagher living in front of goaltenders like he signed a strict lease agreement, Suzuki giving us a glimpse of captaincy yet to come, Caufield completely forgetting he was a rookie in his first NHL playoff run, Anderson and Lehkonen channelling their playoff superpowers, and, above it all, Price and Shea Weber, the two structural beams holding up something that probably shouldn’t have stood as long as it did.
Weber led the top defensive unit, averaging over 23 minutes a night, with bad shoulder, foot, knee, finger — pick a body part and there’s a good chance it was held together with tape. He captained that team to the Final dragging God-knows-what behind him and little did we know that would be the end of his NHL career. Then there was Price, who was dealing with a knee that had been an ongoing negotiation for years (yes, we still blame you for that Kreider). There is no version of this story without Carey Price. He was the backbone, the backbone’s backbone, and whatever load-bearing structure is underneath that and this run ended up being one of his last great chapters before everything slowed down permanently.
So when people talk about that Canadiens run, it’s easy to romanticize the goals, and there were plenty that still make the heart skip a beat when you watch them, but the real pattern was the many “it should’ve been over” moments that weren’t.
The 2021 Canadiens didn’t make it because of a quirky COVID schedule. They made it because they were, against all reasonable expectation, hard to kill. They built an entire post-season identity out of surviving moments that were supposed to end them.
