RALEIGH \u2014 Martin St. Louis made the long walk down a hallway in the bowels of Lenovo Center as celebrations continued on the ice and in the stands.<\/p>\n
The Montreal Canadiens<\/a> head coach didn\u2019t look up before turning left into an adjacent office.<\/p>\n St. Louis and his team had just seen their Stanley Cup aspirations snuffed out by the relentless Carolina Hurricanes<\/a>.<\/p>\n There was also plenty to be proud of despite a painful lesson the peach-fuzzed group hopes will eventually help propel it to the ultimate goal.<\/p>\n The emotion, however, was still raw.<\/p>\n The Canadiens were again blitzed early on the way to a 6-1 loss that ended their Eastern Conference final in five games on Friday night.<\/p>\n Montreal had survived a pair of seven-game series to advance, and after surprising the rusty Hurricanes with a 6-2 victory in the opener, a veteran, battle-tested roster flexed its muscles with four straight wins.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should put gas on the fire,\u201d St. Louis said of his players. \u201cIt should make them feel hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n The Canadiens fully broke the chains of a long rebuild in 2025-26 after a playoff return last season, finishing tied for second in the Atlantic Division with 106 points before an inspired run this spring.<\/p>\n That didn\u2019t make things any easier.<\/p>\n \u201cAs close as it feels, we\u2019re so far away,\u201d Montreal defenceman Lane Hutson<\/a> said. \u201cSo much more to do to battle to get to the ultimate goal. Even when you win two rounds, you still gotta find another level for the next round, and hopefully keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n The Canadiens won a pair of dramatic Game 7s on the road against the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> and Buffalo Sabres<\/a> to make the final, but didn\u2019t have an answer against a Hurricanes roster making their fourth conference final appearance since 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve learned a lot through this process in failing and advancing,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cYou learn way more through the failures. I know we\u2019re not moving on, we\u2019re not going to win the championship, but there\u2019s a lot of wins in what we did this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s gonna help us to keep progressing.\u201d<\/p>\n Carolina suffocated Montreal\u2019s attack over the final four contests \u2014 including back-to-back 3-2 overtime triumphs and a 4-0 shutout \u2014 limiting the NHL\u2019s sixth-best offence in the regular season to a paltry 43 combined shots in Games 2, 3 and 4 ahead of Friday\u2019s whitewash.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of learning lessons when you lose,\u201d Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki<\/a> said. \u201cThey\u2019re a group that\u2019s been together a long time, and hopefully we\u2019re having the same success they do. You gotta learn through these playoff highs and lows. They\u2019ve had their fair share of losses in the conference finals. <\/p>\n \u201cYou gotta get over that hump.\u201d<\/p>\n The Canadiens simply ran out of ideas against a well-drilled and well-rested opponent coming off consecutive sweeps of the Ottawa Senators<\/a> and Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> that had them seeing shadows across 200 feet of ice.<\/p>\n \u201cWe tried a lot of different things,\u201d Suzuki added. \u201cThey bring a lot of pressure \u2026 sometimes you think pressure is there, and it\u2019s not and you lose pucks and throw pucks away. Just weren\u2019t able to generate enough offence.\u201d<\/p>\n Veteran centre Phillip Danault<\/a>, one of the few greybeards on the team after being reacquired from the Los Angeles Kings<\/a> in December, expects brighter days ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all know it\u2019s not gonna be easy,\u201d he said. \u201cGuys gotta understand it\u2019s so unique to make playoffs, and it\u2019s hard to win in this league. When you get a chance, you gotta go all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n St. Louis, who eventually became a Hall of Fame winger, hopes his club has the same feelings he experienced following his first trip to the playoffs when Tampa was bounced from the second round in 2003.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe I\u2019m gonna have to go through another 82 games before I get to have this much fun,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you taste that, it makes you hungry, because we\u2019ve had a lot of fun. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been waves and stuff, but it\u2019s been unbelievable to go through it.\u201d<\/p>\n The youngest team to make the third round since Montreal in 1993 \u2014 also the last time a Canadian team hoisted hockey\u2019s holy grail \u2014 with an average age of 25.9 years led by Hutson, Suzuki, Cole Caufield<\/a>, Ivan Demidov<\/a> and Jakub Dobes<\/a> should have plenty more chances.<\/p>\n But nothing is ever guaranteed.<\/p>\n \u201cYou never know how many chances you\u2019re going to get (to be) a few games away from the Stanley Cup final,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cThe future is bright \u2026 hopefully stay together for a long time.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd do a lot more winning.\u201d<\/p>\n This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2026. <\/p>\n Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH \u2014 Martin St. Louis made the long walk down a hallway in the bowels of Lenovo Center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-705605","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\/705605","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=705605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}