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The Canadiens can qualify for the playoffs as early as tomorrow night: here’s the path
Charles-Alexis Brisebois
The Canadiens can qualify for the playoffs as early as tomorrow night: here’s the path
Credit: Getty Images
At this point, it’s pretty much acquired that the Canadiens will qualify for the playoffs. It would take an enormous catastrophe, at the very least, for the Habs not to be in the playoffs in 2025.

We’re now wondering when the Habs will officially clinch their spot… and against which team they’ll play.

When we look at the standings, we see that seven teams have qualified for the playoffs in the East, and Martin St-Louis’ men have an eight-point lead over the other teams in the race, as you know.

(Credit: Sportsnet)
Yesterday, the Rangers’ loss helped the Canadiens qualify.

And did you know, as Guillaume Villemaire said on social media, that the Canadiens even have a chance to qualify for the playoffs as early as tomorrow night if everything goes well?

This would be perfect for resting some guys, including Samuel Montembeault, and for bringing Ivan Demidov into the lineup with less pressure next week.

How can the Habs achieve such a feat? According to Villemaire, they need to win tomorrow night, but they also need the Islanders and Red Wings to lose (either in regulation or not) tonight. The Rangers and Panthers will be the opponents.

If the Red Wings and Islanders (79 points right now) lose tonight and the Habs reach 89 points tomorrow night, Long Island and Detroit won’t have enough points in their four remaining games to catch up to the Canadiens.

If the Canadiens win tomorrow night, the Rangers won’t be able to catch up to them – probably to the great pleasure of Jeff Gorton. To make the playoffs, the Rangers need to win all their games and the Habs need to lose all their remaining games.

And in the case of the Blue Jackets, even if they win tonight, a Canadiens win would mean that their 89 points would represent the maximum number of points the Ohio team could get.

This being said, the Canadiens will have the tiebreaker… on one condition: if Montreal has as many or more regulation wins than the Blue Jackets.

So we add a condition: tonight, the Blue Jackets can’t win in regulation (or the Canadiens must win in regulation tomorrow) if we want the Habs’ qualification to be official tomorrow.

After all, the next tiebreaker (regulation and overtime wins) belongs to the Habs.

Of course, there are several conditions to be met to celebrate tomorrow night in the Canadiens’ locker room. But with a week left, it’s getting more and more imminent: it’s just a matter of days before it’s official.

Note that winning tomorrow in Ottawa, in regulation, would bring the Canadiens within a point of the Senators in the standings.


Overtime

– Blue Jays win.

– Great Sidney Crosby.

– Lane Hutson is still at the top of the league’s rookie scorers despite everything. He has 64 points, two more than Macklin Celebrini.

– Ivan Demidov, the next Guy Lafleur? [TSN 690]

– Canadiens: the arrival of #93 was unexpected.

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