Sorry Your Canadian Team Sucks: Montreal Canadiens
This year, all seven Canadian teams will be playing in a single division. All of these teams suck and you should hate them. Here’s why.
2019–20 SEASON:
A playoff team in name only. They were awarded a spot because a global pandemic completely changed the playoff format specifically to include them because the NHL had about $5 left in its chequing account.
The Habs were on track to miss the postseason by a wider margin than a Cody Ceci slap shot. At the time the season paused on March 12, they sat ten points back of the 8th seed. Had the season continued just one more day, there was the very real possibility that they would have lost to the Sabres and missed the expanded playoffs entirely. I need to repeat this again for emphasis: in a 70-plus game regular season, the Habs were one point better than a Sabres team that is actively wanting to make Jack Eichel commit seppuku.
Alas, all of that is forgotten by Habs fans because they managed to squeak by a Pittsburgh Penguins team that was barely trying. In doing so, the Habs played themselves out of the right to draft a French superstar that would have made their team substantially better. This still won’t stop any Habs fan from telling you that this four-game sample is allegedly more representative of their team than the preceding 71 games in which they won only 31 times. You know what else happened in a four-game sample? They were swept by a historically awful Red Wings team. We as a society do not discuss this enough.
As soon as the Habs entered the first round, they had to play a Flyers team that was actually trying. The Flyers won the series in six games in spite of the fact that they scored, like, three goals.
YOUR HEAD COACH:
Claude Julien. I’m going to put the act aside for a moment and earnestly wish him the best for his health. His having to leave the bubble due to heart problems was absolutely terrifying and his being behind the bench during a continued pandemic is risky. I have plenty of other opportunities to be mean, so let’s move on.
NEW THINGS THAT SUCK:
Jake Allen! The Habs traded draft picks for Allen to platoon Carey Price and immediately signed him to a two-year extension. Now the team is spending close to $15M on two goalies over the age of 30 until 2023. There’s building from the net out, and then there’s just hoping that either of your goalies can bail out the mediocre team in front of them.
Allen, to his credit, put up a .927 SV% last year behind the defending Stanley Cup champions. I’m sure he will definitely have the same experience playing on a team where a 35-year old Shea Weber is the best defenseman.
The Habs moved on from Max Domi, presumably because they were disappointed that he wasn’t xenophobic enough by Quebec standards. They have now replaced him with Josh Anderson, whom they signed to a 7 year, $5.5 million AAV contract in spite of the fact that he has eclipsed 20 goals and 40 points just once in his career. It’s worth noting that Domi was on track to top Anderson’s career high even last season. Columbus is also paying Domi less and for just two years. Thankfully, I have never heard of an extremely physical 26-year old player with recurring injuries spontaneously combust with age. On an unrelated note, what’s Milan Lucic up to these days?
They acquired Tyler Toffoli at an admittedly great price. He comes from a Canucks team in which his 44 points was 7th best. That would have been third on last year’s Habs team. In any event, we should congratulate the Habs on finally convincing a free agent to play for them. I look forward to the half-hour banner-raising ceremony about it featuring a bunch of old French guys.
Finally, after mocking the Leafs for signing some old guys, the Habs went out and signed…*checks notes*…35-year old Corey Perry. Perry joined this team because he again wanted to be part of a Cup contende-…lol jk, he just wanted to incorporate more cigarette butts into his trash-based diet.
OLD THINGS THAT STILL SUCK:
Ah, yes. The Habs, you see, leveraged a wacky pandemic postseason into a swift first round exit. But they made the playoffs! Never mind that they had absolutely no chance of making it in a conventional year. Never mind that it is a complete crapshoot when you drop a bunch of teams in a bubble and make them play a 5-game series after an almost five-month layoff. Never mind that Pittsburgh badly outplayed the Habs but the latter team had the privilege of shooting pucks at 2020 Matt Murray. Never mind that even if their team improved in the offseason, there still is probably no guarantee that they are a top four team in the North Division. They are truly a powerhouse again!
This is what Habs fans truly believe because they are by far the dumbest and most delusional fanbase in hockey, if not in all of professional sports. Leaf fans are as dumb as a doorknob, but even they have enough self-awareness to understand that their team is and always will be a perpetual failure. Habs fans legitimately believe that they are going to be a Cup contender because it is their God-given right. They will never criticize anything the team does because they think Marc Bergevin is infallible. Every new player is great and every player that leaves the team is a bum. I’ve made this point many times and have angry Habs fans flood my mentions for hours on end. There’s a reason why Grant McCagg has been able to succeed at running his grift on this fanbase. These fans are the hockey equivalent of old guys who fall in love with strippers about three times a week.
Habs fans are a group that love to dish it out but will act outraged if you dare to give them a taste of their own medicine. They believe their team is God’s gift to hockey, a shining franchise on a hill that is a true beacon of historic excellence. Their team is the most storied franchise and they are the best fans in hockey. In spite of their “storied” status, they also believe that the league and media are consistently conspiring against them, which logically tracks. Vancouver took tons of flak for its 2011 riot, but that’s basically just an average Tuesday home game for the bleu, rouge et blanc.
I’m here to tell you that the storied mystique is all a load of crap. Habs fans love to lord 24 Cups over our heads despite the fact their Cup drought is now old enough to have graduated from McGill and moved back to Toronto because that’s where all the jobs are. They haven’t made it past the first round since 2015 and were one pandemic away from missing the postseason for the fourth time in five years. They are a glorified Eastern Conference Minnesota Wild at this point.
Habs fans love to make fun of the Leafs for paying three star players north of $10M each, yet they’re paying $10.5M a season to Carey Price until he’s 39 and $7.85M to Shea Weber until he’s 41. Anderson is tied for their highest-paid forward, which tells you all you need to know about their forwards. They had two players score 20 or more goals and two players score 50 or more points last season.
Habs fans have the self-righteousness of St. Louis Cardinals fans with none of the 21st century success. “The Hockey Sweater” is Montreal propaganda about a kid who threw a temper tantrum because he didn’t get his way, which is a pretty accurate depiction of your average Habs fan when you think about it.
Need more proof? They’re already 0–1 on the season and their fans and media are already going “actually, we played well and deserved to win, so basically it was like we won.” I’m no expert on Cup contenders- being a Leaf fan and all- but I’m pretty sure they don’t pat themselves on the back over moral victories.
