{"id":703929,"date":"2026-05-30T08:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703929\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T08:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:28:08","slug":"canadiens-confident-future-is-bright-with-young-core-after-eastern-final-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703929\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens confident \u2018future is bright\u2019 with young core after Eastern Final run"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a team on the rise, a team that has learned lessons, including how to win, how to lose, how much further it has to go, how great the possibility is of getting there.<\/p>\n

This is a team that, in theory, should be back, with a talented core, a goalie that demonstrated he has the chops, and a coach who seems to know how to push the right buttons. This is a team that, in theory, is just at the opening of its window, with a bright, bright future ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should put gas on the fire,\u201d coach Martin St. Louis said. \u201cIt should make you feel hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n

That they couldn\u2019t get there this season was, of course, a disappointment. It was a crushing loss after seven weeks of fun and excitement. It was an end when they didn\u2019t want one. They also understood why it happened, the toll taken by seven games in the first round, seven games in the second.<\/p>\n

Even on young legs — its 25.8 average age was the youngest to reach the conference final in 33 years, since the 1993 Canadiens — the 14 games to reach this point was a lot. A lot physically. A lot mentally.<\/p>\n

And while they weren\u2019t looking for excuses, it was clear that the journey they had taken to the Eastern Conference Final played a factor in losing four straight games to bow out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs after taking Game 1. As Phillip Danault<\/a> said, \u201cIt definitely didn\u2019t help that we played 14 games.\u201d<\/p>\n

They had advanced, twice, by the skin of their teeth. They had pulled out a 2-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 in the first round. They had pulled out a 3-2 win in overtime against the Buffalo Sabres in Game 7 in the second round.<\/p>\n

But any magic they had harnessed dissipated against the Hurricanes, who barely allowed the Canadiens to get shots off, who clamped down and didn\u2019t let up, using a smothering forecheck to set the tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they were a little bit fatigued mentally because of what they had to go through, and we were the opposite,\u201d Hurricanes coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cAnd I think that really played into our hands because the score and the way the games were, that’s not how this probably would have gone had they been a little fresher. I think that had a lot to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is a team on the rise, a team that has learned lessons, including how to win, how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-703929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}