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These Canadiens Will Not Be Pushed Around
April 30, 2026
Posted 2 hours ago by
There is nothing about the Montreal Canadiens in their current iteration that causes a person to stop thinking about the team when it was the league's vibranium standard, which was nearly five decades ago. These Canadiens have always seemed somehow not it, whatever the it happens to be, and part of it might just be that they, like the other six Canadian franchises in the National Hockey League, have combined for no Stanley Cups in 33 years.
But the cavalier term these Canadiens are also not these Canadiens, as in this year's version. This year's version is in fact giving a face wash to all those notions, starting with, you are what your anthem says you are. They have been paired in the first round with the ultra-experienced Tampa Bay Lightning, who have been the league’s signature playoff franchise for the last decade, all coached to the same stubborn standard by Jon Cooper, intractable by nature and in deed, while the Canadiens' recent history has been essentially to not be a playoff team at all. Even this one, better, faster, and defensively stouter, seemed a year too young to make the required April noise. And that's how being dead wrong in public works. The Habs won Game 5, 3-2, in a harrowing and taut struggle played largely in their end, and they won not by being cool and elegant and Franco-flashy but by winning the faceoffs and outhitting the larger and more playoff-built Bolts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKHDHAU2fJs
Defector
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