Canadiens will face Golden Knights in Stanley Cup semifinals

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Vegas, baby!

The Canadiens will be headed to Las Vegas to start the Stanley Cup semifinals.

The Vegas Golden Knights beat the Colorado Avalanche 6-3 Thursday night in Las Vegas to win the West Division final 4-2, The Avalanche won the first two games of the best-of-seven series before the Golden Knights came back and won the next four.

The Canadiens advanced to the Stanley Cup semifinals by sweeping the Winnipeg Jets in the North Division final.

The second Stanley Cup semifinal series will have the defending-champion Tampa Bay Lightning taking on the New York Islanders.

The Canadiens will play the first two games of their series in Las Vegas, marking their first games this season played outside of Canada. Canadiens players received their second COVID-19 vaccine shots on Wednesday.

The Canadiens will be going up against former team captain Max Pacioretty, who was traded to the Golden Knights three years ago in exchange for Nick Suzuki, Tomas Tatar and a second-round pick at the 2019 NHL Draft that was later traded the the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for a third-round pick (Mattias Norlinder) and a fifth-round pick (Jacob Leguerrier). Pacioretty had 24-27-51 totals in 48 regular-season games this year with the Golden Knights. That’s seven points more than Tyler Toffoli, who led the Canadiens in scoring with 28-16-44 totals.

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Pacioretty scored an empty-net goal and added an assist in Thursday night’s win over the Avalanche, giving him 4-4-8 totals in seven playoff games.

“I’ve obviously been happy for Max to go off and have the success that he has in Vegas,” the Canadiens’ Brendan Gallagher said Wednesday when asked about the possibility of facing Pacioretty in the playoffs. “I don’t think there’s any surprise there. But, at the same time, when you play a guy in a playoff series you’re not really thinking about any relationships you have with them other than he’s the guy standing in your way of getting to the ultimate prize and I think he’ll probably tell you the exact same thing.

“You put all those other emotions aside and you’re competing against every one of the guys on the other side if it is them,” Gallagher added. “They’re just standing in your way and at the end of the series you can go back to being friends. But, for the time being, you put all that stuff aside and you just play against everyone on the other side wearing the other jersey. You compete against him as hard as you would anyone else.”

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This marks the first time the Canadiens have advanced to the Stanley Cup semifinals since 2014. It’s the second straight year the Golden Knights have made it that far and they also made it to the Stanley Cup final during their inaugural season as an expansion team in 2017-18. The Golden Knights have made the playoffs all four years since entering the NHL, losing in the first round in 2018-19.

“They have a Stanley Cup-winning goaltender,” Gallagher said about Marc-André Fleury, who won three championships with the Pittsburgh Penguins before being claimed by the Golden Knights in the 2017 expansion draft. “They went out, they signed (Alex) Pietrangelo, a top defenceman. They have their top line (Chandler Stephenson between Pacioretty and Mark Stone), they have depth.”

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The Canadiens will be underdogs against Vegas after finishing the regular season with a 24-21-11 record for 59 points, 23 fewer than the Golden Knights, who were 40-14-2.

“When we started the season we told you guys the same thing,” Gallagher said. “We’re confident in this group. We’re competing to get into the playoffs, give ourselves a chance. When we started the playoffs I understand there was probably a lot of doubt outside our locker room, but not within it. When we got down 3-1 (to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round) was there doubt, did anyone give up? No. Outside this room, maybe? Who cares?

“Our last series didn’t have to deal with a ton of adversity, but I thought our group did a pretty good job of handling what came with us,” Gallagher added. “For us just about not being too high on ourselves and not being too low regardlesss of what people think of this group. We understand what we are, we understand the way that we need to play to be successful. When we do those things we can be a good team. When we don’t do those things we’re not going to have success. I think we’ve been together long enough to understand those things. So for us it really doesn’t matter what people think of our group. It just matters how we feel and how we prepare and that gives us confidence going in and try and have success against a very good hockey team.”

scowan@postmedia.com

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