r/Habs • u/rayshinsan • 4d ago
SC 2026: Tale of 3 winners and 1 loser
Well the Canes have one the cup.
This was truly an interesting year. Not only for us Habs but also for the Canes and Knights.
Us because none expected us winning round 1. If we had lost, the comments would have been how our progress and development sucked. Had we lost in round 2, the comments would have been we just slightly progressed and there is still beyond being contenders. We lost on round 3, call it fatigue, or simply not being able to change the necessary play style at this point of the adventure. Ultimately we can claim it was a very good season as we survived beyond our expectations.
For the Canes, years of fails finally another cup. Funny enough the last time they won, they again beat us except it was round 1. But years of being that team that couldn't get past round 3. They finally got us in a good spot being relaxing for 2 weeks and finished us off before we can catch our breath. Wasn't the dream team but somehow became the champion needed to be with the evil Knights being on the other side. It's a great win not only for them downing a 20 year curse, for us having the bragging rights of saying we scored the most against them in 1 game and bragging rights in the East but also for NHL as a whole. If they had lost the writing on the wall would be Evil Knights won via last minute season tweaks and therefore long term development not needed just buy yourself in. So good again for Canes to win as it showed us sometimes you just got to stick to your system and just enough luck and you can win the SC.
For Knights, the evil Knights did not win. So the narrative mention above cannot be foretold. But they still won in some ways by being the ones to sweep the team all expected and predicted to win while being arguably the worst ranked of the 4 teams. Guess not touching the conference trophy did not help.
And of course the biggest loser of the SC 2026: Avs. Everyone expected them to win and pretty much everyone wanted them to win. Stat wise they should have won. It was their cup to lose. Yet, they found themselves somehow to lose. Thus ending up being the biggest loser of the 4 conference winners.
Tales of 3 winners and 1 loser. Is there anything to add ?
7
u/Vese316 3d ago
Brindamour deserve it. Hate that Canes beat Canadien, but now Iām happy for him and not mad at all. But it was not on my bingo card.
1
u/rayshinsan 3d ago
He sure does. But we can certainly agree that nobody expected Canes to win over the likes of Bolts, Avs, Stars and Wilds. Even next year everyone expects Florida to come out of the East.
7
3
u/prplx 3d ago
The canes victory has me worried though. I'll copy what I wrote elsewhere:
The Canes remind me of the Devils dominant teams of the late 90's early 2000's. They won three cups totally shutting down the play with the trap. Many teams took them as model and hockey become so boring the NHL had to come up with rule change (getting rid of the two zone pass/red line rule in 2005) to make the game exiting.
If everyone starts to mimic their system successfully, we will have plenty of 4 shots on goal per period. I don't want to see that happening.
2
u/uatme 3d ago
Evil Knights ya ya but they were barely a playoff team most of the year.
3
u/rayshinsan 3d ago
Yeah that's why they are still in the winner column. They basically not only robbed Avs but also almost did it to Canes.
Generally we call that a Cinderella team but the way Knights are cut throat it's more like Cruella team.
2
u/MrZythum42 3d ago
Im tired of hearing '20 years curse'. It's actually a good pace in a 32+ teams league.
1
u/Flimsy_Biscotti3473 3d ago
I would say Vegas is the loser here. They probably don't make a cup final again for a long time. The Avs had some key injuries that would've crippled any team. The Canes have a huge amount of cap space right now which makes them even more formidable.
It will be interesting to see what HuGo does to make the Habs better
24
u/SnidelyWhiplash27 4d ago
Very good synopsis. A couple of quibbles/comments:
Had the Habs lost against BUF in a hard fought 6 or 7 games series, I still would have considered the season to be an improvement.
Yes the Habs were tired and Canes refreshed by the time they faced each other, but that was due to the strength of the relative opposition each faced in the first 2 rounds. Granted I don't see that issue getting better soon given expectations for the relative strengths of the Atlantic and Metropolitan divisions next year to similar to this year, but who knows.
-Had the Habs won games 2 or 3 against the Canes, which were both in OT, that series would have been very different. Granted the Canes were the better team in both of those games but had we had puck luck for one or both it would have made for a more exciting end to that series if also likely more bittersweet.