Habs : Canadiens are headed in the right direction

Source : montrealgazette.com
Two hundred and 20 days of despair, anger, joy, anticipation, delight, disappointment, fear, resignation, despair once more — and finally, an encouraging look at a bright future.
After a 113-day National Hockey League lockout, a six-day, hurry-up training camp, a 100-day regular season — as irregular as it was — and a seven-day Eastern Conference quarter-final series, the improbable campaign of the Canadiens came to a shuddering halt Thursday at 9:45 p.m.
No, that’s not entirely accurate.
The Habs season ended an hour or so earlier, when the Ottawa Senators buried a short-handed goal midway through the second period in Game 5.
If that dampened any idea of a home-team comeback, making the score 3-1 for the visitors, three third-period power-play goals drowned it, swamping the Canadiens and their crestfallen, crest-wearing fans.
(To the spectator who disgustedly threw his jersey on the ice as Ottawa ran up the score: any charity in town would have dearly loved to put that on the back of a real fan.)
Fifty-three games, over and out.
Montreal awoke to a hockey hangover Friday, not unlike the dry mouth and puffy eyes of the morning after a party that’s been long in the preparation and is over, save returning the empties, just like that.
There was no shame in the Canadiens’ five-game loss to the Ottawa Senators, who now move on to the Eastern semifinals against an opponent yet unknown.
The “No Excuses” slogan that was tattooed to the Habs this year, plain to the eye and anchoring every management move, was subscribed to right to Thursday’s bitter if inevitable end. Not head coach Michel Therrien nor any of the players leaned on multiple injuries to key players as a reason for their hasty exit.
Every team still breathing this postseason, and many that didn’t make the playoff cut, are walking wounded, beaten up by a compressed, physically demanding schedule that took on a dramatic per-game urgency.
In his series-ended briefing Thursday, Therrien spoke of his team having had “a lot of bad luck the past two weeks.”
No excuses, but this is reality: six Canadiens regulars could not answer the bell for all or part of the playoffs. They were injured from head — Lars Eller’s concussion and, in teammate Brandon Prust’s clinical description, “broken face” — to the April-torn anterior cruciate ligament of defenceman Alexei Emelin and Game 4 knee injury suffered by goalie Carey Price.
Also out: captain Brian Gionta, with a torn biceps tendon, and Prust and Ryan White, with upper-body injuries.
Forward Max Pacioretty soldiered through the final three games of the series with a separated shoulder, while centre Tomas Plekanec said he’d played the final month of the season with a tender groin.
Gionta was scheduled to be on an operating table Friday, for the second consecutive year undergoing surgical repair of a torn biceps — but the left arm this time.
For the second straight year, both Gionta and Price were on the sidelines for the season’s final game, Price shelved at the end of 2011-12 with a concussion and spine compression. Gionta was dealing then with an injury that cost him the final 40 games of that season.
The Canadiens’ inspirational 34-year-old leader suffered the latest injury midway through Game 1 of the Senators series, actually hearing the tendon pop when he was muscled along the boards and had his arm twisted. He was scratched from Game 2, returned for the madness of Game 3 with the biceps heavily taped, then sat out Game 4 before it was determined his season was done.
That Gionta even dressed for Game 3 was astonishing, given that the tendon is responsible for bending the elbow and rotating the forearm. Yet he played 18:10 over 25 shifts, took three shots, had three hits and earned an assist on the Canadiens goal in a 6-1 loss.
This should, but of course won’t, erase all shred of doubt any of the captain’s critics have about the size of his heart.
Against Ottawa, the Canadiens ran into a sizzling goaltender in Craig Anderson, who finished with a .950 save percentage and 1.80 goals-against average. Not once could the Habs beat him in the third period, the Senators scoring nine in the third on Price (.894, 3.26 total) and Budaj (.774, 6.67).
The Canadiens outshot Ottawa 180-154 and had the 52-48 per cent edge in faceoffs, the Senators outhitting their opponent 182-173.
Ottawa scored on six of 25 power-play opportunities for a 24-per-cent success rate, compared to Montreal’s 3-for-19, 15.4 per cent. On the penalty kill, Ottawa was 84.2 per cent, the Habs 76 per cent.
Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban and centre Plekanec led Montreal scorers with four points apiece, Subban on two goals and two assists, Plekanec on four assists. Only six Canadiens could solve Anderson, who clearly was the player of the series.
There were disappointments:
Centre David Desharnais managed only three shots on goal the entire series, while Michael Ryder, acquired with a draft pick in a trade with Dallas for Erik Cole, had a goal and an assist, his eight total shots not the output needed from a sniper.
Invisible for long stretches, Ryder hit the post-season in a funk, with only one assist to show for his final seven regular-season games.
General manager Marc Bergevin is apt to lay out some of the changes he has in mind when he holds his first season-over media debriefing on Monday. The players will say their goodbyes Saturday afternoon in Brossard, picking up their summer fitness programs and scattering out of town.
The Canadiens spent much of last off-season rebuilding the front office and coaching staff before it ran headfirst into a lockout.
This summer, those pieces are in place and a normal 82-game schedule will follow what should be a fascinating entry draft, NHL awards that feature Calder Trophy nominee Brendan Gallagher and Norris nominee Subban, and period of free agency.
For Habs fans, the pain of elimination should be tempered by the promising future for this organization. In one short year, it has taken several bold, impressive steps in the right direction.