The Canadiens, the youngest team to participate in the playoffs this year

2. The return to health of Patrik Laine and the arrival of Alexandre Carrier have transformed the Canadiens’ season. Before they joined the team, the Canadiens were going nowhere. That’s something we know and have been repeating for months…

But on the other hand, it’s clear that the absence of Kirby Dach didn’t have the catastrophic effects that were expected.

Dach, a second-line center that many saw as a potential first-line center less than two years ago, played his last game of the season on February 22. He then had another surgery on his knee, which was initially operated on last season.

Giving up on Suzuki to go straight to Dvorak or Evans in the depth chart had the potential to sink the Canadiens. Except that’s not what happened. Not at all, actually!

The Habs have a record of 14-5-6 since February 23, the date of the announcement of Kirby Dach’s season-ending injury.

We have to admit it: Dach’s absence didn’t hurt the Canadiens. On the contrary! The Canadiens played their best hockey of the year without him.

Owen Beck and Alex Newhook did their best, and we can’t say they were worse than Dach was before he got injured this year.

The big question now is: what do we do with Kirby Dach in the offseason?

Do we trade him? His value isn’t very high…

Do we keep him as the second-line center? Meh…

Do we convert him to a winger and go find a real second-line center? That makes sense…

To note that Dach completed his 2024-25 season with 10 goals, 12 assists, and a minus-29 differential. All that in 57 games…

3. According to my sources, the Canadiens players are injured. And I’m not just talking about Pezzetta’s finger, Gallagher’s entire body, Josh Anderson’s back, or Emil Heineman’s upper body, etc.

Not many guys in the locker room are escaping with just an ice pack or a heating pad after games.

I don’t know if they’ll be able to keep it up for several more weeks…

But hey, the collective goal was to be in the mix, a goal that was achieved, even surpassed. Everything that happens in the next few weeks will just be a bonus.

A bonus that will come at a high price for the fans who will pack the Bell Centre, but a bonus nonetheless!

4. The most impressive thing about our Canadiens, who are at the end of their rebuild, is that their current success is due to the young players on the team. It’s the young players who led the group to the playoffs (and that’s exactly what you want from a team that’s turning the corner on their rebuild).

Suzuki… Caufield… Hutson… Slafkovsky (who was finally excellent last night)…

The team’s top four scorers are all young players that Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton have bet big on. The team’s fifth-highest scorer is Brendan Gallagher (38 points).

Only the Buffalo Sabres had a younger team than the Canadiens this season… and they missed the playoffs for the 14th consecutive season!

According to the Instagram account 1909culture, the 2024-25 Canadiens would be the youngest team to make the playoffs in NHL history. However, according to my research, the 1980-81 Oilers were a bit younger (0.7 years) than the current Canadiens.

All that, and we haven’t even mentioned young Kaiden Guhle, who helped the Canadiens extend their season last night…

5. The Canadiens didn’t get caught up in statistics, mathematical models, and trends.

At American Thanksgiving, the Canadiens were five points out of a playoff spot. Historically, a team that isn’t in the top eight of their conference at American Thanksgiving has very little chance of making the playoffs.

On December 1, it was even worse. The Canadiens were 31st in the overall standings, eight points behind the eighth team in the East.

At times during the season, the mathematical models on the MoneyPuck site gave the Canadiens only 1 or 2% chance of making the playoffs.

What a turnaround! What a season! Let’s see if the Habs will be able to beat the odds in the playoffs…