Five reasons Canadiens clinched playoff berth

The Montreal Canadiens clinched a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs one game earlier than they did last season when they defeated the Florida Panthers 3-2 in overtime Saturday.

The Canadiens have six games left; they had five remaining last season when they clinched following a loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on April 1, 2014.

The season prior to that, coach Michel Therrien's first back behind the Montreal bench, the Canadiens clinched with eight games remaining.

For a franchise that had grown accustomed to scratching and clawing its way into the postseason, this has been a welcome change and one of many signs showing how successful Therrien's tenure has been in his second stint with the Canadiens.

Yet in each of those three seasons, there have been reasons to doubt the Canadiens were for real.

In the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, Montreal began to slip down the stretch after a surprising start coming off a season when they finished last in the Eastern Conference. There were many reasons to believe the Canadiens would fall back to the pack in a full season; their five-game exit in the first round of the 2013 playoffs did nothing to dispel that argument.

The past two seasons, the Canadiens have had poor underlying numbers that suggested they were a flawed team, but they have nonetheless maintained a lofty perch in the standings and comfortably qualified for postseason play.

The reasons they were able to do so this season closely mirror last season's, with the biggest, most glaring one topping the list each time.

1. The safety net

Goaltender Carey Price makes a lot of the Canadiens' flaws seen in the numbers disappear.

Price leads the NHL in every major goaltending category and is putting up a historic season. He has emerged as the favorite for the Hart Trophy as the League's most valuable player and is a practical lock to win the Vezina Trophy as its best goaltender.

Price is, far and away, the biggest reason why the Canadiens have clinched a playoff berth, just as he was last season.

2. An elite defense pair

The Canadiens may not be a strong possession team, but they do have a strong possession player.

Defenseman P.K. Subban and, to a lesser extent, his defense partner, Andrei Markov, drive play to the opposing end when they are on the ice.

Subban is one of the best defensemen in the NHL when it comes to on-ice shot attempt differential compared to when he is off the ice, or SAT relative percentage.

To put that into perspective, each of the Canadiens' top nine forwards in terms of even-strength ice time had his shot attempt percentage increase dramatically when he was on the ice with Subban compared to when he was on the ice without him.

In simpler terms, Subban makes everyone around him better.

Subban and Markov each log heavy minutes, and the majority of those minutes are against top opposition.

Having a dynamic player like Subban allows the Canadiens to win those difficult matchups, forcing opponents to try and beat them with their depth, and that's when Price usually takes over.

3. Staying on track

This is largely a byproduct of Price's play, but the Canadiens have not lost more than three games in a row at any point this season.

They lost three in a row in regulation once, and on three other occasions they lost three consecutive games but with one of them in overtime or a shootout.

That ability to consistently bank points and avoid a prolonged slump allowed the Canadiens to remain at or near the top of the Atlantic Division standings all season long.

4. Maxing out the consistency

The poster child for the Canadiens' consistency this season has been forward Max Pacioretty.

Pacioretty's longest stretch without a goal has been five games, and that's happened once, from Dec. 12-23.

Aside from that five-game slump, Pacioretty went three games without a goal on seven other occasions, ending his latest one with the overtime winner against the Panthers on Saturday, his 36th goal.

It's a far cry from his previous two seasons and might signal a switch from Pacioretty's past as a streaky scorer to a consistent one.

Pacioretty had three goal droughts last season that were longer than the five-game streak he had this season; he had one of eight games, one of seven games, and one of six games that began in the regular season and stretched into the first three games of the playoffs. He also didn't score in the first five games of the Canadiens' second-round series against the Boston Bruins before scoring once in each of the final two games of the series, including the game-winner in Game 7.

The season before, in 2012-13, Pacioretty did not score in his first 10 games and had two streaks of six games without a goal.

On a team that struggles to score, getting production from Pacioretty on a regular basis this season has been extremely valuable to the Canadiens.

5. Ignoring the noise

Despite being at or near the top of the standings almost the entire time, the Canadiens have been forced to answer questions about some of their flaws all season.

In a city like Montreal, it can be difficult to ignore the doubters.

But the Canadiens have remained steadfast in their belief that they can win playing the way they play and confident in their ability to do so.

It is easy, and valid, for them to simply point to the standings when questioned on their mediocre power play or their tendency to be outshot on a regular basis.

But the Canadiens never wavered in their belief in their system. Even when everyone else did.