Worse draft odds the price Canadiens reluctantly pay for playoff shot - Sportsnet.ca

Kyle Bukauskas checks in with Colby Armstrong and Eric Engels to preview what a Canadiens/Penguins playoff series would look like and whether a healthy Penguins team would be too much for Montreal to overcome.

MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens, along with seven other NHL teams, are being offered an unprecedented chance to play for the Stanley Cup without having earned that right on their own merit.

It would be a stretch to say Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin is enthralled about it and we can’t really blame him.

“We’ll deal with the cards that have been dealt to us as best we can,” said Bergevin on a 40-minute conference call Wednesday.

As Bergevin mentioned on the call, a chance to play playoff hockey is what every team is in it for when they arrive at training camp, and that’s unquestionably an exciting outcome for a team that has missed out on that opportunity in each of the last two seasons and in three of the last four.

But it’s unimaginable the GM sees that as a better outcome than the one his Canadiens were trending towards in piecing together a 31-31-9 record through the first 71 games of an 82-game season.

When the NHL hit the pause button, the Canadiens, with that paltry record, were 10 points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Ilya Kovalchuk, Nate Thompson and Nick Cousins were sold for draft picks at the February trade deadline and the team — which was falling further and further out of contention — was focusing on its future and taking the necessary steps towards improving its draft lottery odds.

But now, in the wake of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announcing on Tuesday that the return-to-play plan the league and the NHLPA agreed upon would have 24 teams involved in a tournament for the Stanley Cup, the Canadiens’ inclusion decreased their chances of drafting in the top-10 this summer.

For what it’s worth, Bergevin said he’s looking at that outcome as glass half full rather than half empty.

“For me, we have an opportunity as a team,” he said.

When Bergevin was asked how he views his team’s chances in the proposed format, he said, “I think our chances are as good as any of the other eight teams that have been awarded a playoff spot, to be honest with you.”.

But that was hardly a convincing statement regarding their chances in comparison to those of the 16 teams that were in playoff spots when the season was paused.

“It’s a short series, anything is possible,” Bergevin said of the three-to-five-game play-in round.

So we’ll see where we are, but I feel confident that if we do get to play against Pittsburgh, we have a chance to beat them.”.

“The percentage [of winning the draft lottery] going from six to two percent is, once again, not an ideal world,” Bergevin said.

Especially if the Canadiens drop out of the playoffs shortly after that.

For a team that embarked on a reset in the summer of 2018 — a team that Bergevin insists will only reach contender status by building through the draft and by properly developing its young talent — a guaranteed spot in the top-10 this summer was an opportunity to accelerate the process!

It may not have been what management was hoping for when the Canadiens started the season, but it certainly was the desired outcome by the time they had proven themselves incapable of making up the talent gap between them and the teams firmly entrenched in the playoff race.

And even if Bergevin said he couldn’t give a certain update on Victor Mete’s status because the young defenceman has been rehabbing from a broken left ankle from his home in Woodbridge, Ont., and away from Canadiens doctors, Mete told us at the end of March that he was two weeks away from removing his walking boot and just a few weeks out from a full recovery

As for the play-in, Bergevin may not have been exuberant about it, but he’s still hopeful his team will make the best of it

11, but we have an opportunity and I still believe in this team,” he said

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