The Canadiens among the worst teams in the last ten NHL seasons

It’s been a while since the Habs have had a dominant team on the ice. In fact, in the last ten years, it’s been quite rare. This was the case in the 2012-2013 and 2014-2015 seasons, with fourth and second place respectively in the overall standings. For the rest, the CH has oscillated between good, average and very bad.

The Glorieux finished ^28th in the 2017-2018 season, ^32nd in 2021-2022 and ^28th again last season.

So that’s a pretty mixed record in the regular season over the last decade. But how bad is it really?

During that period, the Canadiens racked up 392 wins in 831 games, ^23rd overall. The Boston Bruins (501), Tampa Bay Lightning (494) and Pittsburgh Penguins (482) lead the league in victories over the past ten seasons.

You can even go back to the 2000-2001 season and see that the Montreal Canadiens’ record isn’t much better:

Underated?
by u/Marduke8329 in DallasStars

Where things get particularly interesting is when we do the same exercise, but for the playoffs. The Habs greatly improve their case, jumping from ^23rd to ^11th.

Number of Playoff wins in the past 10 years
by u/Flothua152 in field hockey

What this shows us is that when the CH reach the playoffs, they manage to get pretty long runs considering the level of their line-up. We can certainly say a big thank you to Carey Price for that.

It’s also worth noting how the Vegas Golden Knights have managed to forge an effective playoff line-up in a very short space of time. With only six NHL seasons played, they rank second for most playoff wins in the last ten years. That’s no mean feat.

Conversely, the Buffalo Sabres have had zero playoff wins over the same period.

Now that hurts!