Canadiens pain – Montreal’s season ended with a fourth straight playoff loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, a 6-1 defeat at Lenovo Center that left the Canadiens staring at the kind of ache that can also build a team. Coach Martin St. Louis points to experience and detail as the
RALEIGH, N.C. — The locker room message for the Montreal Canadiens was simple, even if the feeling wasn’t: for now, it’s pain.
Every blocked shot that came with a jab, every hit that lingered, every slash that suddenly throbbed—those images don’t fade quickly after a fourth straight humbling loss. It ended a dream after 101 games.
On Friday, that wound was put on display again when the Carolina Hurricanes crushed the Canadiens 6-1 at Lenovo Center. For Jordan Martinook, it was his 89th playoff game, the one that finally pushed him and Carolina to Round 4.
“A lot of years with a lot of pain,” Martinook said after the win. “We had teams that could’ve got there and just (didn’t do it)… It’s been a crazy journey…”
In Montreal, the pain is still fresh. But the Canadiens have already started looking at what it could become—because they can’t ignore what Carolina did with the same kind of suffering.
No one knows more than the Hurricanes how an injury-bruised season can turn into a sharper identity. Carolina absorbed brutal defeats in three Eastern Conference Finals—losing 12 of 13 games—before transforming into the punishers they’ve become.
That’s the path Montreal is trying to understand while it stands outside the moment it wanted to reach.
Phillip Danault, 33, is under contract for one more season with the Canadiens. He spoke like someone measuring time as much as losses.
“I don’t know if I have three more years,” Danault said. “I hope it’s not that long for us, but we’re a different team. Sometimes it’s just a matter of who you play against. The maturity you build, the brand you have, it helps you find ways against certain teams.
“They found their way against us, and they deserved it. They work harder every single year.”
Montreal’s hope is that growth can come quickly—because the Hurricanes’ rise didn’t happen without a cost.
Carolina showed some rust in Game 1, a 6-2 loss that followed an 11-day break between rounds. Then the series flipped. From Game 2 on, the Hurricanes took over in a run that included one of the most dominant four-game stretches in playoff history.
In those four wins, Carolina outscored Montreal 15-4 and outshot the Canadiens 139-67. The numbers were as lopsided as the feel on the ice, and they helped explain why the Hurricanes were able to play as if they owned every pocket of space.
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis tried to frame the gap in terms his team could fix.
“I think the one thing we kind of learned is they really played to their identity. and they have a lot of details inside of that. and I think for us it’s to keep trying to play to our identity but elevate the details a little bit. ” St. Louis said. “The details just come with maturity and experience. It’s a really good team, a lot of experience. You’ve got to give credit to how well they played. They made it really hard on us, and we’re going to learn from a lot of that stuff.”.
Carolina has learned those lessons through their own harsh timelines. The Hurricanes had already felt the weight of pain before—getting waxed 4-0 by the Boston Bruins in the 2019 ECF, and then being sliced and diced 4-0 and 4-1 in 2023 and 2025, respectively, by the Florida Panthers.
The Hurricanes survived those moments and kept evolving. And now, they’re carrying a hunger that has them rolling: they’re now 12-1 in these playoffs.
For Montreal, the consequence of this series isn’t just a completed run—it’s a sense of what comes next.
Hanging over everything is the knowledge that a future can be built from the exact kind of bruises Carolina once had. St. Louis is seeing that in real time as Carolina’s hardened version of itself advances.
Montreal’s season ends with a brutal reminder of how much distance remains. Wins over the 106-point Tampa Bay Lightning and the 109-point Buffalo Sabres got the Canadiens to this stage, and then a loss to the 113-point Hurricanes made the truth undeniable: there’s more to do.
“It wasn’t easy this year to get into the position we were in, being one of the top three teams (left standing) or whatever, but it’s going to be even harder next year,” Lane Hutson said. The Canadiens sophomore is 22.
Hutson knows the Atlantic won’t soften. He pointed to the Sabres. saying they are nearly as young as Montreal and just as motivated by the pain they endured at the Canadiens’ hands this spring. He also referenced the Ottawa Senators. who lost in four games to the Hurricanes in Round 1. and the Panthers. who were injury-riddled after three straight trips to the Final and two consecutive Cups.
The Lightning, Hutson said, still have a championship-calibre team.
And that’s only the start of the list. Hutson also noted that the Canadiens will have to contend with other rising teams in the Atlantic, naming the Ducks, the Mammoth, and the San Jose Sharks.
“These teams are hungry, they’re coming, they see what we’re doing and we’re not sneaking up on anyone necessarily,” Hutson said. “We feel like expectations are we’re supposed to be one of these teams, so we’ve just gotta bring it right from the start and bring a playoff mentality to training camp.”
There will be healing before the next training camps begin. But first, there’s the job of processing what this loss costs.
St. Louis said the defeat should sharpen Montreal’s appetite.
“It should put gas on the fire. It should make them feel hungry,” St. Louis said. He knows what that kind of hunger looks like because he lived it as a player in 2004.
“I remember my first experience losing in the second round of the playoffs,” St. Louis said. “I was so upset on the bus because I couldn’t believe I had to go through another 82 games before I get to have this fun. So, I think that when you taste that, it makes you hungrier, because we’ve had a lot of fun. There’s been waves and stuff, but it’s been unbelievable to go through it.”.
For Montreal, the message lands through grief more than philosophy. Mike Matheson described the reality bluntly.
“You learn more when you’re losing than winning, that’s for sure,” Matheson said. “It’s hard to see that right now and look past how disappointing it is right now. But obviously, in the coming weeks, once you get back to your summer training, that motivation should be pretty high.”
Carolina understands what comes after the sting. Their pain pushed them to the next level, and they may be less than two weeks away from finally shedding the remnants of it.
Montreal is left with a similar decision, only it’s measured in months instead of games: can it turn the agony of this series into a different team by the time next season starts?
Montreal Canadiens Carolina Hurricanes Stanley Cup Playoffs Martin St. Louis Jordan Martinook Phillip Danault Lane Hutson Mike Matheson Lenovo Center Game 1 6-2 Game 2 onward domination