Stu Cowan: So much has changed since Canadiens’ playoff win over Leafs

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What can be both wonderful and heartbreaking about pro sports is the unpredictability.

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How one play can make a difference in a game and one game can make a difference in a franchise’s future.

If there hadn’t been a Blue Monday or the 1994 players’ strike, maybe the Expos would still be in Montreal playing in a downtown ballpark with a World Series banner blowing in the wind. If the Saskatchewan Roughriders hadn’t been penalized for too many men on the field when Damon Duval missed a last-second field goal at the 2009 Gray Cup, the Alouettes wouldn’t have been crowned champions.

If Scott Norwood’s last-second field-goal attempt hadn’t been wide right in 1991, the Buffalo Bills would have won a Super Bowl in their first appearance instead of being known as the only franchise to lose four straight NFL championship games.

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With the Toronto Maple Leafs in town Monday night to play the Canadiens, it had me thinking back to the last time these two rivals met at the Bell Center and the impact that game had.

It was Game 6 of a first-round playoff series last May with the Canadiens trailing the best-of-seven series 3-2. The Canadiens had a 2-0 lead midway through the third period, but the Leafs fought back to tie the game and send it to overtime.

The Leafs totally dominated the first 15 minutes of OT and were outshooting the Canadiens 13-1. The Canadiens’ four “Clydesdales” on defense — as they were called by assistant coach Luke Richardson — were obviously running out of gas and couldn’t get the puck out of their own zone.

But Carey Price was standing on his head in goal and at the 15:15 mark of OT Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored the winning goal for the Canadiens, who had also won Game 5 in OT on a goal by Nick Suzuki. Shea Weber logged 37:09 of ice time in Game 6, Ben Chiarot had 35:22, Jeff Petry 34:51 and Joel Edmundson 28:38. Price and the Clydesdales somehow still had enough left in the tank to beat the Leafs 3-1 in Toronto two nights later and the Canadiens went on a remarkable run to the Stanley Cup final before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Leafs are still looking for their first Stanley Cup since 1967.

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So much has changed for the Canadiens since Game 6 against the Leafs, when Price made 41 saves. Six players from that game are no longer with the Canadiens — Kotkaniemi, Phillip Danault, Tyler Toffoli, Corey Perry, Eric Staal and Erik Gustafsson — while Price, Weber and Edmundson haven’t played all season because of injuries.

GM Marc Bergevin was fired this season, as was head coach Dominique Ducharme.

If the Canadiens had lost Game 6 to the Leafs you have to wonder if Ducharme would have been back this season. The Canadiens had a 9-5-4 record when Bergevin decided to fire Claude Julien and replace him with Ducharme. The team struggled to learn Ducharme’s new system and went 15-16-7 after he took over, limping into the playoffs on a five-game losing streak (0-3-2).

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The Canadiens continued to struggle with Ducharme’s system this season and had an 8-30-7 record when he was fired and replaced by Martin St. Louis. Ducharme was the first head coach to lead the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup final since Jacques Demers in 1993, when they won their last championship, and he was rewarded last summer with a three-year, US$5.1-million contract.

When the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in 1986 with Jean Perron as head coach, he was aided by a strong leadership group that included veterans Bob Gainey, Larry Robinson, Ryan Walter, Bobby Smith and Rick Green, who were able to take charge. Ducharme had the same thing in the playoffs last season with Weber, Price, Perry, Danault and Staal leading the way.

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This season — without those veterans in the room — everything seemed to fall apart.

St. Louis is trying to put the pieces back together and the Canadiens headed into Monday’s game on their first two-game winning streak of the season.

“You need direction and you need a culture,” St. Louis said after Sunday’s 3-2 shootout win over the New York Islanders. “But inside all that, fun has to be part of it. I know winning brings that, but also I think as coaches you’re in the business of convincing your players why we’re doing things a certain way. And once you have convinced them, it really takes off. But, of course, fun is part of it. What I miss the most about the NHL as a player is the fun I had. So you have to create an environment, a culture where fun is part of it. We can’t just focus on the wins and losses. It’s part of it, but to me it’s the process and I think the boys are believing in the process and they’re having fun with it.”

It really is amazing how much things have changed since the last time the Leafs were in town — and there are a lot more changes still to come for the Canadiens.

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