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The Montreal Canadiens not only claimed the NHL's Eastern Conference regular-season title, they carry the weight of Canada's best hope into the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Canadiens, who whisked away the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 in their regular-season finale at the Bell Centre on Saturday, stayed in the top spot in the East when the Pittsburgh Penguins dropped a 2-0 decision to the Philadelphia Flyers Sunday.
That outcome means Sidney Crosby, who did not play in the closer in order to rest his sore ankle, and the Penguins will get a rematch with the Ottawa Senators in the first round.
The Canadiens will clash with the Boston Bruins, a team Montreal defeated in all eight regular-season games in 2007-08 season.
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The Calgary Flames, the only other Canadian team in the playoffs, have the most difficult first-round test going up against the hottest team in the league, the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks finished their regular season with an incredible 18-2-2 run.
The Habs weren't given much of a chance to win their first conference title since 1988-89, let alone qualify for the playoffs by the preseason pundits. Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau, whose team was criticized for a lack of character a year ago when they finished 10th in the East and missed the postseason, credited his team's success to its character and chemistry.
“We had team chemistry,” he said. “We really pulled together. I really believe in that.”
The knock on the Canadiens, who won seven of their final eight regular-season games and led the league with 267 goals, has been that they relied heavily on their No.1 line of Alex Kovalev, Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitsyn.
But Montreal was more than a one line club. The Canadiens were the only team that had seven different players register more than 50 points this season in Kovalev (84), Plekanec (69), Mark Streit (62), Andrei Markov (58), Saku Koivu (56), Kostitsyn (53) and Christopher Higgins (52), who scored twice in the win over the Leafs.
Rookie goalie Carey Price also has been on top of his game. He finished with a wonderful 24-12-3 record, .920 save percentage and 2.56 goals against average.
Markov finished with a career-high 16 goals. Streit also had career highs of 13 goals, 49 assists and 62 points. Plekanec and Kostitsyn also set career highs in points and Higgins checked in with a career-high 27 goals.
“We wanted to be playing our best hockey going into the playoffs and we did that,” Higgins said. “We are playing with a lot of confidence right now.”
The Canadiens will find out in the next few days whether Koivu can recover from his fractured left foot in time for the series opener on Thursday.
The Flames also are relatively healthy, but the Senators will begin postseason play downs without captain Daniel Alfredsson (knee, neck), Mike Fisher (knee) and Chris Kelly (leg).
“The bottom line is [the injuries] leave us short, no question,” Ottawa coach and general manager Bryan Murray said. “It's just a fact of life we're going to have to live with and deal with. I'm not going to say much, other than Dean McAmmond, you were a fourth-line player all year, now you've got to play on the second line. That's all we can do. We're going to ask the guys, just give us 100 per cent every night. That's all I can really do as an underdog.
“I think any time you give a good person more opportunity, they will come with more emotion, they will come with a desire to prove that they can do it.”
Even though the Penguins lost Sunday, they enter the postseason off an 8-3-3 run, while the Senators limped home by winning only twice in their final six games.
The Senators and Penguins series begins this week in Pittsburgh. The Flames and Sharks will open their first-round affair in San Jose.
Montreal was the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup in 1993, but the Flames in 2004, Edmonton Oilers in 2006 and the Senators last spring have meant a Canadian team was in the Stanley Cup final the past three seasons.
