Is this the year the Habs bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada?

Ed. here. We welcome the return of our National Sports (As Long As It's Hockey) Editor, Poor Len Canayen.

Tank youse, Hed. The last Canadian (or Canada-based) team to win the Stanley Cup, emblematic of the championship of the National Hockey League, was the Montréal Canadiens, who brought Lord Stanley's silverware home in 1993. They defeated the Los Angeles Kings in that year's final series. 

Since then, no Canadian team has won the Cup. And no Canadian team has played in the finals since 2021, when the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Habs (for it was them, again) 4 games to 1.

In about 200 minutes, the same two teams will do battle again. in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. They finished the 2025-26 season 2nd (Lightning) and 3rd in the Atlantic Division, behind the surprising Buffalo Sabres by a mere 2 points. Whichever team wins this round will likely meet the Sabres next. 

Who will win tonight? As I point my TV antenna towards Florida, I think of the last match between the Habs and the Bolts in the regular season. It was like the old Henny Youngman joke: I went to the fights the other night and a hockey game broke out! 

Les Glorieux gave as good as they got, and I don't think they're going to be bested in the rough stuff department tonight. I also think the Habs can compete in goal. They have the luxury of two goalies -- the two Jakes -- with save percentages of over.900. TB has only the one. 

As for scoring, Habs are better per the stats after an amazing season. How can anyone stop a power play unit consisting of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky, Ivan Demidov and Lane Hutson?! The question is defence. 

The loss of Noah Dobson hurts. Alexandre Carrier may be able to play, maybe not. So that puts a lot of pressure on Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj. They've improved greatly in the second half of the season, but can they handle 20 minutes per game? It may come to that because coach will be reluctant to give much ice time to David Reinbacher and Adam Engstrom who, IMHO, aren't yet ready for prime time yet. 

I hear you asking for a prediction. My heart tells me Habs in 7, but I wouldn't bet on it! Ed. says some blog posts end suddenly and inconclusively. This is one of them.

Poor Len's second look at the Montréal Canadiens,

Poor Len Canayan reports from the National Sports Desk.

Isn't it the truth I told yez, yesterday. A first-rate first line. Tic-tac-toe. Two goals in the Habs' 4-2 victory over the Phlyers of Philthydelphia. [Don't make me use Spellcheck! Ed.] After that, a brother act to watch, and not much else. 

For those who missed it, here are Canada's team's scoring plays: 

1) Less than a minute into the first period, Cole Caufield from Lane Hutson and Nick Suzuki. Tic-tac-toe. Beautiful.

2) Florian Xhekaj, his first NHL goal, causing his mom, watching from the stands, to cry tears of joy for Arber's little brother. 

Ty Thorpe and Luke Tuch assisted. Both were engaged throughout and deserve a serious look to remain with the big club.

3) Nick Suzuki from Juraj Slafkovský and Cole Caufield. Good on Slafkovský for coming back from a nasty slap to the yap, and showing signs of being ready to start playing seriously before mid-season.

4) Arber Xhekaj, into an empty net in the last minute of play... on the second try!

That's just about all ye need to know, except that Arber Xhekaj is going to wind up as the seventh defenceman unless he can learn to keep his temper under control and pick his spots more carefully. In the third period, with the score 3-1 Habs, he was tripped in the Flyers corner, drawing a penalty. But then, right under the eys of the refugee, he skated up behind the penalized player and gave him a shot in the back, hoping to start a fight. The Phlyer didn't bite.  Result: 2 minutes for the Flyer and 4 minutes for roughint to Xhekaj, and a power play goal for Philly.

Jakub Dobes played goal for les Glorieux for the first half of the game and looked solid. His replacement for the second 30 minutes was the much-travelled Kaapo Kähkönen, a UFA who signed with the Habs from one year in July. About ten seconds after he took his position between the pipes, he got scored on. He looked even worse, on the Flyers' second goal, just a few minutes later. 

He redeemed himself (partially) with a good sprawling stop on a breakaway later, but let's just say that he's in no danger of being called on during the regular season unless Sam Montembault, Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler all get sick or hurt on the same day Sorry, Kaapo.

Afterthought: Who told Lane Hutson that he's a defenceman? With his speed, skating, stick-handling and playmaking skills, plus a decent shot, and considering his diminutive size, shouldn't he be playing on a forward line? Mind you, he effectively plays a forward's role when he quarterbacks the power play, but still... 

Further reading (great minds think alike dept.): "Observations et impressions après deux matchs préparatoires", par Richard Labbé, La Presse, 24/9/25.

Poor Len's first look at the 2025-2026 Montréal Canadiens

Our National Sports (as long as it's hockey) Editor, Poor Len Canayen, was thrilled yesterday to find that RDS is carrying all the Montréal Canadiens pre-season games. Here's how he saw last night's match with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Thank youse, Hed. For an exhibition game, last  night's contest was good, entertaining hockey, and le bleu, blanc et rouge won 2-1 in a 5-round shootout. That said, one would have thought that the supposedly improved Habs could do better against a Pittsburgh team that rested Crosby, Malkin, Letang and its other top players. The narrow victory doesn't inspire confidence.

Preliminary indications are that the Habs, in spite of strengthening their defensive corps over the summer, remain a team with just one good line. They rested Cole Caufield, Jury Slavkovsky, and captain Nick Suzuki, as well as ace-to-be defenceman Lane Hutson, leaving fans wondering who could be counted on to score. 

Answer: no-one. The Habs' goals came Owen Beck and, in the shoot-out, Oliver Kapanen, both of whom played a couple of games with the team last season and failed to impress. Give Beck his due, though. He was 70% at the faceoff dot, had 4 shots, and deserved the first star. He played the kind of game he needed to have a shot at filling the only available (on paper) vacancy on the forward lines.

Another forward with a shot, albeit a long one, is Filip Mesar, who played on Beck's right last night. With Laval last year, he had a disappointing 18 points in 42 games. But he made his presence felt yesterday, showing good puck control and patience, as well as willingness to get into the dirty areas, à la Brendan Gallagher. It was he who began the sequence that led to Beck's third-period goal. 

It was nice to see Mesar trying to show some finesse, for he had declared at the rookie training camp that he wanted to show more meanness, and was willing to drop the gloves, although at 5'10" and 184 lbs he's far from the heavyweight class. "We're not looking for a new Chris Nilan," said Coach Martin St-Louis. "You can see he's got good hands and good intelligence. His game has matured, and that's good to see."

And then there was the guy the fans came to see, Ivan Demidov. The problem with him, it says here, is that he needs someone to play with. Last night he was on the right of Jake Evans, not a top centre, with Patrik Laine on the left. I won't riff on Laine for being lazy because in the pre-season one doesn't expect the established players to give their all. Still, he could have done more than take one shot and then go into flotation mode.

It was Demidov who brought the Habs to life in the third period. Tired of waiting for someone to pass the puck to him, he showed that he can keep the puck out of reach of any defender, making moves which decades ago would have been described as "Savardian". He did have a couple of shots but was a bit off-target on one and foiled by the Penguins goalie on the other. No worries about his future with the "A" team. Just please, please put him on a line with a good centre and a mates who like to be part of tic-tac-toe  plays.

And that's it except to say that Jacob Fowler, making his debut between the pipes, looked calm and collected, and pulled off one spectacular save to preserve the tie and force overtime. I could see the coach going with a three-goalie rotation (with Samuel Montembault and Jacub Dobes) for the first 10 or15 games, before deciding which two will be the regular goaltenders. Is it possible to have a Jake as a starter and another Jake as the backup?