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Series in 2025-26: “It won’t necessarily be the Habs’ goal”
Félix Forget
Series in 2025-26: “It won’t necessarily be the Habs’ goal”
Credit: In 2024-25, the Canadiens wanted to be #InTheMix. That was the phrase repeated at the golf tournament… and in the end, the Habs weren’t #InTheMix: they were #InThePlayoffs. Well, to be in the playoffs is to be in the mix… but you get the point: the club exceeded expectations. In the eyes of many, therefore, […]
In 2024-25, the Canadiens wanted to be #InTheMix. That was the phrase repeated at the golf tournament… and in the end, the Habs weren’t #InTheMix: they were #InThePlayoffs.

Well, to be in the playoffs is to be in the mix… but you get the point: the club exceeded expectations.

In the eyes of many, therefore, the Habs have reached a new stage in their rebuilding. But a new stage also means higher expectations, and suddenly there are quite a few people in Montreal who think that for the Habs, qualifying for the playoffs in 2025-26 would be the least they could do.

On the Tellement Hockey podcast, Alexandre Gascon talked a bit about all this… and listening to him, we understand that his impression is that this isn’t necessarily how the Habs management sees things.

His feeling is that they don’t necessarily see a need for results in 2025-26… and that we should perhaps expect another year when the club hopes to be #InTheMix (changing the expression, of course) rather than #InTheSeries.

Gascon notes that he gets the impression that management feels they still have time… and that’s not necessarily unrelated to what they said at their end-of-season press briefing.

They often insisted that the team might be even younger next year, and while they want to try to improve, they didn’t sound like two men aiming for the Stanley Cup as early as 2025-26, let’s say.

And obviously, in many people’s eyes, that would be a disappointing result after making the playoffs this year… but it wouldn’t necessarily be out of the ordinary either. The development of a team, after all, doesn’t happen in a linear fashion, and the Habs were a bit lucky to qualify this year.

It caught fire at the right time and all the other teams fell apart… and it still required a win in the 82nd game of the season, a game in which the Hurricanes didn’t play their regulars.

Even if Ivan Demidov has a big first season and the Habs go looking for 1-2 pieces to improve their team, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the club found itself out of the playoff picture. The important thing, once again next year, will be to see the important pieces of the core step up.

And if that means another year of being #InTheMix, so be it… although, of course, it’s always nicer to see them #InThePlayoffs.


Overtime

– Cole Caufield teases Lane Hutson.

– What do you think?

– To listen to Mathieu Darche’s appearance on La Poche Bleue, click here. It starts around 1:08.

– Nice read.

– I think so too.

– Could any of these players be of interest to the Habs?

– Whew.

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