Canadiens confident ‘future is bright’ with young core after Eastern Final run

RALEIGH, N.C. -- There were no tears in the eyes of Lane Hutson as he stood in a visitor’s locker room stripped of its name plates and uniforms, a room ready to be emptied for its next occupants. There was only certainty, only a sense of faith in the future, in the place this Montreal Canadiens team has staked, for now, and for later.

Because while this season had just ended, with a 6-1 defeat in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final at Lenovo Center that clinched the best-of-7 series for the Carolina Hurricanes, few of the Canadiens were dwelling on what they had lost, on what could have been.

This was about what they had gained. It was about where they were going.

“Lots of lessons we learned,” Hutson said. “Lots to be proud of. I have no doubt that we’ll be back in this situation again. It’s a lot. It’s a lot that happened. But proud of the group. Look forward to starting the journey again.”

It’s an easy sentiment for a 22-year-old to have, a player with almost the entirety of his career ahead of him. But he wasn’t alone. They all seemed to see what was lost through the prism of what can be.

“Honestly, it was just trying to stay in the moment,” Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki said. “You never know how many chances you’re going to get to (be) a few games away from a Stanley Cup Final. Obviously the future is bright with a lot of young players, a core that can hopefully stay together for a long time and do a lot more winning.”

This is a team on the rise, a team that has learned lessons, including how to win, how to lose, how much further it has to go, how great the possibility is of getting there.

This is a team that, in theory, should be back, with a talented core, a goalie that demonstrated he has the chops, and a coach who seems to know how to push the right buttons. This is a team that, in theory, is just at the opening of its window, with a bright, bright future ahead.

“It should put gas on the fire,” coach Martin St. Louis said. “It should make you feel hungry.”

That they couldn’t get there this season was, of course, a disappointment. It was a crushing loss after seven weeks of fun and excitement. It was an end when they didn’t want one. They also understood why it happened, the toll taken by seven games in the first round, seven games in the second.

Even on young legs -- its 25.8 average age was the youngest to reach the conference final in 33 years, since the 1993 Canadiens -- the 14 games to reach this point was a lot. A lot physically. A lot mentally.

And while they weren’t looking for excuses, it was clear that the journey they had taken to the Eastern Conference Final played a factor in losing four straight games to bow out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs after taking Game 1. As Phillip Danault said, “It definitely didn’t help that we played 14 games.”

They had advanced, twice, by the skin of their teeth. They had pulled out a 2-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 in the first round. They had pulled out a 3-2 win in overtime against the Buffalo Sabres in Game 7 in the second round.

But any magic they had harnessed dissipated against the Hurricanes, who barely allowed the Canadiens to get shots off, who clamped down and didn’t let up, using a smothering forecheck to set the tone.

“I think they were a little bit fatigued mentally because of what they had to go through, and we were the opposite,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “And I think that really played into our hands because the score and the way the games were, that's not how this probably would have gone had they been a little fresher. I think that had a lot to do with it.”

The Canadiens got one goal on Friday, at 10:50 of the third period on the power play, a goal by Cole Caufield. By then, though, it was far too little, far too late.

“The game slipped away pretty quickly,” Hutson said, with the first goal coming at 9:17 of the first period, plus two more in a span of 1:40, with the Canadiens entering the first intermission down 3-0.

They could not come back, not against a team that saw a Stanley Cup Final berth waiting for them after the disappointment of losing one round too early two of the past three seasons. The Hurricanes didn’t let up. The Canadiens had no answers.

They simply couldn’t generate enough offense.

“You’ve got to give credit to how well they played,” St. Louis said. “They made it really hard on us. We’re going to learn from a lot of that stuff. But there’s so much more positive than just the result.”

There is all that’s to come.

This is a team that is so much smarter than it was when the season started, so much more ready to compete, to persevere, to win. This is a team that learned it can win in a Game 7, that learned limits and pushing past them. This is a team that knows more about itself, more about what it will take, more about what it can’t do and more about what it can.

“We’re still far off and we know it,” Hutson said. “I think this just instills some more fuel for us next year.”

So, yes, there was pain on Friday night in Raleigh. There was disappointment. There was an ending.

But hope was there too.

“It’s something we built,” St. Louis said. “We keep growing and we’ve learned. We’ve learned a lot through this process and failing and advancing. But you learn way more through the failures. This year I know we’re not moving on, we’re not going to win the championship, but there’s a lot of wins in what we did this year. I think it’s going to help us to keep progressing.”