The Montreal Canadiens returned to action on Tuesday night and picked up where they left off before the All-Star break.
They lost. Again. And even though this loss wasn't quite as bad as their back-to-back losses to Columbus before the break, it was still not the result they needed.
Their 4-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers was their 20th in their past 25 games and was another blow to their already fading playoff chances. It's also pretty unbelievable when you consider the start this team had to the season.
Through their first 26 games, the Canadiens had the best record in the NHL at 19-4-3, good enough for 41 standings points. A team that was good enough to pile up points at that pace through a quarter of the season should be good enough to make the playoffs. It should have given itself enough of a cushion to withstand almost any kind of slump later in the season.
The Canadiens seem to be challenging that.
Given where the Canadiens are now compared to where they were a few months ago, I wanted to see how teams with comparable starts ended up.
If the Canadiens don't turn things around quick, they could be in the process of making history.
Before this season, 19 teams had at least 41 points through their first 26 games of the season (along with Montreal the Dallas Stars also did it this season).
Here is what they ended up doing in those years.
- All of them qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
- 12 of them went on to finish with the best record in the NHL.
- 10 of them reached the Stanley Cup Final.
- 7 of them won the Stanley Cup.
With their loss on Tuesday, Montreal is now five points out of a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and has four teams between them and what would be the final spot (they are also tied with Ottawa in points) while having no games in hand with any of the teams they are competing with.
With 31 games left in the season ... that is not a good position to be in when you consider how hard it is to make up that type of deficit this late in the season.
