The Montréal Canadiens will be Las Vegas bound to start the Stanley Cup semifinals tonight. Las Vegas defeated the Colorado Avalanche in 6 games to reach this level. The Max Pacioretty Bowl is the unofficial name for this battle. We prefer to focus on Nick Suzuki, Tomas Tatar, and prospect defenseman Jayden Struble.
We would have preferred the Habs and the Avalanche mostly for the Quebec Nordiques references over the next couple of weeks. Also, we don't have much respect for the Las Vegas NHL franchise and the way the league has helped them along the way.
The Canadiens will play every other day, the first series where that has been the case. The U.S. teams won't play a single back-to-back in the 2021 NHL playoffs. Those hoping for a Saturday night Hockey Night in Canada scenario will have to wait for a potential Game 7. Both teams won Game 7 in the first round.
A potential Game 6 in Montréal would be on June 24, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, la fête nationale du Québec.
2021 Stanley Cup notebook: Montreal sweeps Winnipeg to head to Stanley Cup semifinals
The 2014 version of the Montréal Canadiens were the last team to reach the final four. The Canadiens swept the Tampa Bay Lightning and defeated the Boston Bruins in 7 games. The New York Rangers were the Eastern Conference final opponent. Chris Kreider hurt Montréal goalie Carey Price in Game 1, knocking him out for the series.
Montréal has not been to the Stanley Cup final since 1993, the last year any Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup.
The Canadiens have won 24 Stanley Cups. If the Habs survive the series, they will win a trophy they never thought to win: the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl. When expansion came in 1967, the conferences were divided into Campbell (western) and Wales (eastern). Gary Bettman decided that was too cool and dumbed down the conference names by geography.
The early expansion days had a bit of geographic confusion over which teams fell in which conference. Montréal has always been in the Wales Conference. Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, and Calgary Flames have all won the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl. A Montréal win would certainly be a pandemic-noted moment.
2021 Stanley Cup notebook: Montreal advances to play Winnipeg
The Canadiens are in pretty good shape overall. There is concern over defenseman Jeff Petry, who suffered an "upper body injury" in the Winnipeg series. Alexander Romanov came in for Petry. Hopefully, both Petry and Romanov will be in the defence mix.
Petry, Jake Evans, and Jon Merrill are expected to travel to Las Vegas. That doesn't mean they will play.
Round 3 begins Monday at 9:00 p.m. ET, in Vegas!#GoHabsGo https://t.co/fHhhVnX9Bh
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) June 11, 2021
The Bell Centre will continue to host 2,500 fans for every home game in the next round. Las Vegas is now up to full capacity at T-Mobile Arena as of the last round: 17,367. The team was able to start admitting 2,605 fans as of March 1.
Quebec Institute of Public Health is considering a request from the team to boost that 2,500 number.
2021 Stanley Cup notebook: Toronto-Montreal reaches Game 7
Montréal has traveled to Vancouver this season and has played in the four most western time zones in Canada. Las Vegas has gone 2 time zones east (Central). The other remaining teams are in the Eastern Time Zone.
The Canadiens might have a slight advantage in the travel realm.
2021 Stanley Cup notebook: Winnipeg Jets pull off the sweep
Hall of Fame inductee Bob Gainey addressed the team on Wednesday last week. Gainey played, coached, and was the general manager for the Habs. He won 5 Stanley Cups as a player with Montréal: 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1986.
"He talked about experience. There aren't a lot of organizations that can fall back on alumni with the amount of experience that this one can, and we were fortunate to have one in the building today. He was able to speak to us about some things that he went through during his career, some things he's seen. He talked about how important it was going to be to start Game 1 and really implement our style of play. It was a passionate speech. It was nice to have him here." — Brendan Gallagher on Hall of Famer Bob Gainey addressing the team.
2021 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs preview for Canadian teams
Last summer, Montréal coach Claude Julien had chest pains after Game 1 of the Philadelphia series on August 12. Julien had a stent procedure and said he would have been back if the Canadiens had gone to a Game 7 in that series.
Kirk Muller, associate coach for the Habs, took over for the rest of the series. Muller was an assistant coach with Montréal from 2006-2011 and associate coach from 2016-2021. His lack of French is likely a factor as to why he never became the head coach in La Belle Province.
Julien and Muller were let go in February, replaced by Dominique Ducharme and Alex Burrows.
Muller just got named an associate coach for the Calgary Flames under Darryl Sutter. Muller was a fan favourite in Montréal, part of that 1993 Stanley Cup winning squad.
As for Julien, Elliotte Friedman reported recently that his name hasn't come up for coaching vacancies.
Hope Muller will find success in Calgary. Muller and Julien are people to root for in the NHL.
NHL notebook: Waiting to start the Stanley Cup chase in Canada
The Habs won't have to deal with Nazem Kadri. The former Toronto Maple Leafs player was suspended for 8 games earlier in the playoffs for a "high, forceful check" to St. Louis defenseman Justin Faulk's head.
2021 Stanley Cup playoffs scoreboard
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Rogers will have the current top crew call the Montréal series: Chris Cuthbert, Craig Simpson, and Kyle Buskauskas. John Bartlett and Garry Galley will call the Tampa Bay-NY Islanders series off the monitors. Harnarayan Singh and Louie DeBrusk called the Winnipeg-Edmonton series but Bartlett and Galley are out east and have been calling games off the monitors for weeks now. Congratulations to Bartlett for his first Stanley Cup semifinal.
CBC is not carrying Game 5 of the Canadiens series. The public broadcaster is showing the Indspire Awards: Celebrating Indigenous Achievement that night. The public broadcaster is carrying every other game of both series.
We know the top crew will be in person in Las Vegas.
As for NBCSN, we expect that Kenny Albert, Ed Olczyk, and Brian Boucher (aka village idiot) will call the Stanley Cup final. The other major team — John Forslund, Joe Micheletti, and Pierre McGuire — will cover the Montréal series. This could explain why Forslund called Game 2 in Winnipeg.
Praise to NBC for taking the 3-person booth concept from Hockey Night in Canada. Rogers Sportsnet worked hard to get rid of that, even in the playoffs. Hope ESPN and TNT will keep that around.
We thank Alex Faust and Dominic Moore for their service. Moore worked hard to provide true insight, something Boucher still lacks.
The split crews feel a bit unfair in that the worst of the 2 play by play people (Forslund) gets 2 above average analysts while the better play by play person gets a good analyst (Olczyk) and an awful analyst (Boucher). Albert, Micheletti, and either Olczyk or McGuire would be rather nice.
The crew covering the Habs series gets a slight edge since Forslund is slightly better on play-by-play than Boucher is on analysis. That said, we are willing to suffer through Boucher if the Canadiens are playing for the Stanley Cup.
The over-the-air part of NBC is only carrying a single game in this round and the Montréal Canadiens are not involved. The only chance the Canadiens will be on NBC is to get past this round. USA steps in for NBCSN for Game 3 and a potential Game 6.
We don't know if any of the NBC people will travel to Canada or set foot in Montréal.
The NHL Network will have matinee rebroadcasts. Hoping for Canadian feeds even if highly unlikely.
photo credit: NHL
Twitter capture: @CanadiensMTL
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