Game 6: Carolina 2 @ Montreal 1

To borrow from the Canadiens' marketing slogan of "Tricolore jusqu'au bout," the 'bout' has come. The Montreal Canadiens, winners of 24 Stanley Cups and makers of endless playoff magic, have been ousted from post-season contention by a team that resides in the heart of NASCAR country. For Habs fans everywhere, this loss hurts; just a week ago, lovers of the bleu-blanc-rouge were awakening to the hangovers that must surely have followed celebrations of their team's surprising 2-0 series lead over Carolina. This morning, however, they were jolted out of bed with the thoughts of what should have, could have, and might have been.

The worst part of it all? The Canadiens actually played a great game in Game 6. They got back into form just in time to force a seventh game, but their offense was stalled yet again by the Hurricanes' rookie goaltender, Cam Ward. And though Cristobal Huet made some amazing saves, keeping a flurry of shots out of the net in the final minute of play to send his team into overtime, he let in a pretty weak goal to end the series (and yes, I know it was deflected, but the deflection happened below the faceoff circle near the blue line, leaving Huet with plenty of time to adjust his positioning).

That being said, the truth is that this series was over the minute Justin Williams got careless with his stick - and got away with it. Not necessarily because Saku Koivu was missing, but because no one on the Canadiens, not Alex Kovalev, Mike Ribeiro, Radek Bonk, or Jan Bulis, was up to the task of filling the void left by Koivu's absence. The Habs made a mountain out of a molehill in interpreting Koivu's being sidelined, and lost all their confidence because of it. That, coupled with unabashedly one-sided refereeing, did the Canadiens in for these playoffs.

There are some who will attribute this Canadiens loss to the Hurricanes' switching of goaltenders, and while I admit that Ward was very good, I think the officiating helped the young goaltender out quite a bit. If you caught the goaltender interference penalty that was assessed to Jan Bulis in last night's game and compared it to the one Mark Recchi got, it would become pretty obvious that Ward was offered significantly more protection than his Canadiens counterpart, Huet.

In any case, what's done is done, and the Habs' 2005-'06 season is a thing of the past. It was, as I have said many times before, a season of extreme ups and lowly downs, and though their lack of effort became glaringly obvious at times in this series, there were also a lot of positives to come out this year - the play of young players Tomas Plekanec, Alexander Perezhogin, Chris Higgins, and Mike Komisarek, the emergence of veterans Francis Bouillon, Andrei Markov, and Craig Rivet, and the impending departure of the inconsistent Mike Ribeiro and perhaps even Richard Zednik.

Thanks for an exciting season, Habs, and, come September, we'll all be singing the familiar song that rejuvenates us year after year: Tricolore jusqu'au bout.

Check back here for player report cards, random thoughts on the rest of the playoffs, and Canadiens rumours and speculation. Happy playoffs, and happy off-season!