Montreal Canadiens Continue Moving Toward Top Seed

It was just another typical night on Saturday for the Montreal Canadiens. Montreal continued their domination of the Eastern Conference with a 2-1 win over the New Jersey Devils. Montreal is now 19-5-4 on the season and looks to me like they are going to cruise into the top seed if this continues. It is presently a three-team race for that top seed with the Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins, but I think by the end of the season, it will be Montreal that will be sitting with the No. 1 seed.

Montreal has proved all season long that they have the firepower on offense and enough on defense to make things very easy on themselves. The Canadiens have won five straight games now and seven of their last nine. Montreal has to be thinking very hard about what could happen if they can get that top seed and avoid the other two teams that are close to the top until the conference finals if the seeds held up. I know that I would be thinking very hard about that because even though things can change in the blink of an eye, that top seed means something.

Montreal has to play Boston or Pittsburgh four more times this season over their last 20 games. Carey Price has been outstanding in goal all season long, and I don’t see any reason why Montreal can’t be the team that plays for the Stanley Cup at this point. I know it is going to be a fight to the end with all three teams, but I really think Montreal will finish on the top of the standings by season’s end.

Andy Schmidt is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ASchmidtSports, like his Facebook page or add him to your network on Google.