The simple notion a healthy Montreal Canadiens team can go from a fifth-last 2023-24 finish to simply competing for a 2025 playoff berth is far from universally accepted. Tell that to a non-Habs fan and you might get some pushback, despite the undeniable fact the team is literally on the rise, rife with young talent and having improved the last few seasons with 55, 68 and 76-point finishes.
If you average out those two year-over-year improvements, the Canadiens are projected to rise 11 points in the standings to 87, with the Washington Capitals having made the 2024 postseason with 91. The Florida Panthers reached the playoffs as an eighth seed the previous season with 92. So, by any reasonable assessment, a difference of approximately two wins constitutes a measure of being “in the mix” by the end of the regular season.
Nevertheless, the disputes to the contrary fly in from each direction: There are too many teams above them (dismissing how not all those teams will improve and that some playoffs teams will inevitably fall too). They don’t have an elite goalie (dismissing how Samuel Montembeault and Cayden performed adequately based on analytics like goals saved above expected). They give up too many chances (dismissing how the defense comprises young talent that is consistently gaining more experience, which is the crux of the whole argument and the situation in which the team as a whole finds itself).
It’s like encountering resistance to an argument heading into 2023-24 that, up front, Juraj Slafkovsky can eventually develop into a top-six forward, just because the status quo of an underwhelming rookie season is all everyone knew. It’s contrarian and narrow-minded and, lo and behold, the 2022 first-overall pick broke out with a 50-point sophomore effort, to the pseudo shock of all the negative Nancys who should have known better.
Slafkovsky perfectly encapsulates the conundrum Canadiens critics face. A prospect has only failed to break out until they take the next step in their development. A bottom-five team is only a bottom-five team until it’s not, especially a young team with so many young players primed to take the next steps in their development.
The resistance runs contrary to the numbers, the logic and, in fact, history. Truth be told, the Canadiens themselves finished third from last in 2012, only to win the Northeast Division the following season. Contrarians would simply argue in response that they got upset in Round 1 those playoffs. Fair enough.
However, ignoring the fact Canadiens history is laced with examples of incredible one-season turnarounds, so is NHL history. A perfect example is that same 2012-13 season, in which the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Islanders also made the playoffs, despite finishing immediately above the Canadiens in the standings in 2011-12.
Related: Canadiens’ Top One-Season Turnarounds in Team History
Clearly that lockout-shortened season is just the exception, they might argue. Spoiler: They won’t have done their homework in so arguing… and it isn’t. Starting from that one season (and excluding the pandemic-affected 2019-21 seasons) here are the 12 (12!) instances of the same recurring “phenomenon” (apparently) since, when once-bottom-five teams rebounded in just one year to make the playoffs:
2023: Seattle Kraken, New Jersey Devils
Obviously, neither the Seattle Kraken nor the New Jersey Devils capitalized on the momentum they generated making the playoffs in 2023 to make them again in 2024. In the Devils’ case, you’d have to believe it’s an aberration based on their lack of reliable goaltending, which they’ve hopefully since rectified with the Jacob Markstrom trade. Regardless, the fact remains both were bottom-five teams in 2021-22. Both still managed to reach the postseason in 2022-23.
2018: Devils, Colorado Avalanche
The Devils make their first appearance on this list (chronologically speaking) as a direct result of Taylor Hall’s Hart Memorial Trophy season. Considering their first-round exit and how they had not made the playoffs since their 2012 Stanley Cup Final appearance and did not again until 2023, as indicated above, there’s a case 2017-18 was an aberration too.
Regarding the Colorado Avalanche, 2016-17 was their infamous 48-point season as one of the worst teams in the cap era. Not only did they make the playoffs a season later, but five seasons later they won the Stanley Cup, giving hope to Canadiens fans everywhere following their team’s last place season in 2021-22. On the strength of first-round draft picks like Cale Makar (2017), Mikko Rantanen (2015), Nathan MacKinnon (2013) and Gabriel Landeskog (2011), the Avs arguably serve as the model for success, literally going from last to first in relatively short order.
2017: Calgary Flames, Columbus Blue Jackets, Edmonton Oilers, Toronto Maple Leafs
In the interest of full disclosure, the Calgary Flames make another appearance on this list in 2015. They obviously missed the playoffs in 2016 and did again in 2018, making multiple false starts and stops as a franchise, a trend that has for all intents and purposes continued to this day, as they alternate between disappointment and success story.
Admittedly, that’s an argument against the premise of this piece. Hypothetically, even the Canadiens were to rebound to make the playoffs next season, what’s the point if they can’t sustain that level of success? Ironically though, the fact four separate teams that had finished as bottom-five teams in the standings the previous season make up this entry goes to show there’s something to the thesis: Drastic one-season turnarounds are possible. Whether they are sustainable or not is another story altogether.
In fact, for the Canadiens’ purposes, the Maple Leafs prove rebuilding with young talent is the best way to go about it. Rookies Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander all contributed to the team’s first playoff season since 2012-13. The Leafs haven’t missed them since (even if they’ve struggled to reach so much as Round 2 in the process).
2015: Flames, New York Islanders
For the Islanders, their 2015 playoff berth was a direct result of eventual-Maple Leaf John Tavares’s near-Art Ross Trophy-winning 86-point campaign. Dallas Stars forward Jamie Benn stole the title by scoring 87 points, closing out his season in dramatic fashion
Tavares was nevertheless a Hart Memorial Trophy finalist, an award Canadiens goalie Carey Price ultimately captured. Ironically, Tavares scored at a higher point-per-game pace the previous 2013-14 season (66 points in 59 games). He got injured during the 2014 Winter Olympics and missed the rest of the season as a result.
However, even healthy, Tavares couldn’t put a team that clearly wasn’t quite ready to compete on his shoulders, as evidenced by then-general manager Garth Snow’s premature move to go all-in, acquiring Thomas Vanek. Snow eventually re-traded him for cents on the dollar to the Canadiens that same 2013-14 season.
Prior to the Olympics and the Tavares injury, the Islanders had been in the same bottom-five position as when the season ended. Interestingly, the early-season Vanek acquisition coincided with a swoon in the standings from which they couldn’t recover. However, 2014-15 marked something of a resurgence for the franchise, despite the eventual first-round loss. They made the playoffs again in 2016, at which point they won their first series since 1993.
2014: Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning
This marked Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper’s first full season behind the bench, after he replaced Guy Boucher in 2013. As such, after two straight non-playoff seasons, the Lightning turned a corner in 2013-14, despite a first-round sweep at the hands of the Canadiens.
The Lightning have since gone on to make the playoffs in 10 of 11 full seasons under Cooper, winning two championships in that span. If there’s another big difference worth mentioning between the two seasons (2012-13 and 2013-14), it’s the changing of the guard, as the Lightning bought out the contract of then-33-year-old Vincent Lecavalier during the summer.
Despite the eventual playoff berth in 2013-14, they also traded current-Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis mid-season to the New York Rangers (despite having another full season under contract). In the process, they effectively gave the keys to the car to a new generation headed up by Steven Stamkos, who literally returned from a months-long injury and got named captain right after St. Louis got dealt, and rookies Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson.
It’s worth noting the Lightning suffered their second straight first-round loss these past playoffs. So, they’re presumably on the back nine of their impressive decade-long run as a powerhouse in the Eastern Conference (and entire league), serving as a reminder of the cyclical nature of professional sports. If they’re on their way out, another team will be on the way up, at their expense. It’s not necessarily the Canadiens, but it could be.
