Ya, but they entered the playoffs in years where they played teams outside their division. They played good hockey teams. Montreal hadn’t played a good team until the other day.

Regular season does count. Our conversation isn’t about, “does montreal deserve to be here right now,” it’s about whether they’ll be back. By your logic, the year tampa got swept by columbus, they were cooked. They stunk in the playoffs. Regular season doesn’t count right? Should have blown up the team. Or, very good teams have peaks and valleys just like bad teams do, and because regular season does count in determining how good a team is, they bounced back and won a cup. Just like their short stretch of bad games didn’t define them long term, montreal getting hot and beating a couple butter soft, cupcake matchups doesn’t define them long term either. Without major alteration to the roster, they’re underdogs to make the playoffs under normal division alignment, and i don’t really see an argument to the contrary. They wouldn’t have made the playoffs if things were normal this year.

Tl;dr.

Montreal will beat Vegas and your world will shatter.

Okay, so you’re just a homer that can’t read a short paragraph. Got it. Moving on.

Ya, but (insert his narative without any consideration for other's opinion).

Moving on indeed.

I acknowledged your opinion and explained why i disagree. If that’s too much for you to handle, maybe an Internet forum isn’t for you. I’m sure there’s a habs forum somewhere where everyone just talks about how perfect the habs are. Maybe that’s more your speed if someone disagreeing with you is too much for you.