Salut, les Habs!

Walt [and Ed.! Ed.] join our National Sports Editor, Poor Len Canayen, in saluting the Montréal Canadiens, who were defeated 1-0 by the Tampa Bay Lightning last night, in what became the final game of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. Congratulations on a playoff run as improbable as it was inspiring. Now over to Len for the wrap-up.

The spectacular playoff run of le Canadien, known to all as "the Habs", is over. They lost to a better team, the 2020 Stanley Cup winners who have now won their second in a row and could well do a threepeat next year. 

But the Habs have nothing to be ashamed of. They had one bad game -- Game 2 -- and just one really good game -- Game 4 -- but overall played as well against the Bolts as any other team could have. I don't think Las Vegas, who the Habs beat 4 games to 2 in the semi-final, could have done any better. 

Without doing too much shoulda-woulda-coulda, I can't help feeling that if the Habs' coaches had followed my advice and put Romanov and Kulak in place of Merrill and Gustafsson after Game 2, they might have won one more game. Ultimately, though, Canada's team lost through a lack of scoring, as was particularly evident last night. There weren't enough guys who were consistently able to finish a passing play, so it was rush, rush, rush, and the Lightning did a great job of defending against that.

The amazing thing about the Canadiens' playoff run is that many would say (and are still saying, shame on them) that the Habs didn't deserve to be in the series at all! Of the 16 teams who made the playoffs, le bleu-blanc-et-rouge had the worst regular season season, the only team to get into the playoffs in spite of a negative goals for/against stat. 

La Sainte Flannelle finished fourth in what was deemed to be the weakest of the NHL's four divisions, and to reach the finals beat not one, not two, but three teams who were better than they. First they came back from a 3-games-to-1 deficit to defeat the much-favoured Toronto Maple Leafs. Then they swept the Winnipeg Jets, four straight. Then they beat Las Vegas, who had finished second overall in the NHL, 4 games to 2. 

Indeed it was an impressive playoff run, of which les Glorieux and their fans right across Canada (and in Canada's 11th province -- Florida!) can be proud. All of us here at WWW offer most sincere congratulations and best wishes for 2021-22.

What about "next year", which begins in just 97 days? The Canadiens will have a much different roster. Although they don't get a pick until the third round of the entry draft, they will lose one of their better players (G Jake Allen?) in the expansion draft. And at least two under-performers -- I can think of four, but won't name names today -- will be gone. So I'll not make any predictions until I see who's in the training camp. See you in September!

Worth watching on YouTube: "Montreal's Cinderella Run Falls Short in 2021 Finals", with THG (Shannon, The Hockey Guy), 8/7/21.