Now that we’ve covered the Montreal Canadiens’ performance against the Atlantic division, it’s time to move on to the Metropolitan division. The Habs had a particularly tough time against one of these eight teams: the New York Rangers. Jeff Gorton’s former team may not have made the spring dance, but it was a real thorn in the Canadiens’ side.
The Habs met three times with the Blueshirts last season, and the New Yorkers skated away with two wins, including a blowout 7-2 win, which led to the Rangers overscoring the Canadiens 15-10 on the season.
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The first duel against Artemi Panarin and co. might just have been the Canadiens’ worst game of the season. On a night when the Habs were honouring their 1970s dynasty team, the young Canadiens were manhandled entirely by the Rangers, who had a four-goal lead after just 11 minutes. After allowing four goals on 10 shots, Samuel Montembeault was pulled, and Cayden Primeau took over. The swap seemed to wake up the Canadiens, and Nick Suzuki scored a pair of goals before the Blueshirts added three unanswered goals. It was a fourth loss in a row for the Habs, who had allowed 45 shots on net and committed 23 turnovers playing against a team that feeds off mistakes.
In the second game, at Madison Square Garden, the Canadiens hoped to get revenge since the Rangers had lost five games in a row, but Montreal had no such luck. The host skated away with a 4-3 win after the Habs had mounted a fantastic comeback in the third frame. The score was tied at 3-3 when Kaapo Kakko scored a power play goal with 24 seconds left in the game as Kirby Dach looked on from the penalty bench after taking a four-minute double minor for high-sticking.
The Canadiens won the final duel of the season by a 5-4 win in which they came back from behind four times before scoring the game-winning goal in overtime through Patrik Laine at even strength. Brendan Gallagher and Christian Dvorak both had a pair of points and played a big part in the win.
The season series against the Rangers is a pretty good reflection of the Canadiens’ season. Early on, Martin St-Louis' side seemed to panic when they fell behind on the scoreboard, and they were unable to stop the onslaught. Progressively, they improved and realized they had the talent and skills necessary to fight back and get back into games before finally being able to go toe to toe with other teams and exchange blows for blows, which is precisely what the January game was like.
Montreal will need to build on that last performance if it hopes to have success against the New York outfit next season. Furthermore, Montembeault will need to perform better against the Rangers. He started two games this past season and had a .790 save percentage. Jakub Dobes was in the net when Montreal finally managed to beat the Blueshirts. The two losses cannot be entirely blamed on Montembeault, however, since the rest of the team wasn’t playing well in front of him either.
The Rangers will have a very different look this season, though. For one, Kaapo Kakko won’t be there to build on his four-point performance as he has been traded to the Seattle Kraken. Chris Kreider, who wasn’t much of a factor in the season series this time around but is still on Canadiens fans’ blacklist because of the “Price incident,” has also moved on; he’s now with the Anaheim Ducks. Adam Fox, Panarin, and Mika Zibanejad are all still there, however, and they were all factors in last season's series.
New York also signed K’Andre Miller to an eight-year contract extension and signed free agents Vladislav Gavrikov (seven-year contract) and Taylor Raddysh (to a two-year deal). Tough guy Matt Rempe also put pen to paper on a two-year extension.
The wait won’t be long before the two teams meet again. The first duel is set for October 18th at the Bell Center, and it promises to be an electric matchup. The young Canadiens will be eager to show that they’ve learned from last season and won’t be pushed around by the Rangers anymore. Cutting down on avoidable mistakes will be crucial, as no team can afford to shoot themselves in the foot often against the Rangers and hope to emerge unscathed.
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