MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens are playoff-bound again.<\/p>\n
Montreal clinched its spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs Sunday afternoon after the Detroit Red Wings fell 5-4 to the Minnesota Wild, making the Canadiens the first Canadian NHL team to secure a post-season berth.<\/p>\n
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It marks a second straight appearance after the Canadiens snapped a three-year drought last spring, following a full-scale rebuild. They claimed the final spot in the Eastern Conference before falling to the Washington Capitals in five games in the first round.<\/p>\n
This time, they\u2019re not just squeaking in.<\/p>\n
Montreal (45-21-10) has punched its ticket with six games to spare in the regular season and sits second in the Atlantic Division with 100 points, firmly in the mix for home-ice advantage heading into Sunday night\u2019s matchup with the New Jersey Devils.<\/p>\n
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The Canadiens \u2014 with Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson leading a young, talented core \u2014 are also riding an eight-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2024.<\/p>\n
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens are playoff-bound again. Montreal clinched its spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[971,93,2217,5,502,38,21,151,4,60,975,20570,14,104,718,24866,26631,6739,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-542794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-playoffs","8":"category-stanley-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-cole-caufield","10":"tag-detroit-red-wings","11":"tag-eastern-conference","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-lane-hutson","14":"tag-minnesota-wild","15":"tag-montreal-canadiens","16":"tag-new-jersey-devils","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-nhl-playoffs","19":"tag-nick-suzuki","20":"tag-spot","21":"tag-stanley-cup","22":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","23":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl","24":"tag-straight-appearance","25":"tag-sunday-afternoon","26":"tag-the-canadian-press","27":"tag-washington-capitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116354427454509217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}