There are some teams that sort of go late, lose, but then set themselves up to be a competitive team the next season.
I feel like this Montreal team literally gave a miserable Flames team every opportunity to jump past them in the standings and Calgary out-sucked them. While I don't think Montreal's a bad team, I think they're built for the playoffs where they can have Price going every game and have that imposing backend, it's just tough to get into the playoffs without that top end skill (like, Montreal's the antithesis of Toronto, who's built to run people out of the building for 82 games and roll over to show their bellies in the playoffs).
I have a hard time seeing it with the division they're in.
Things we know:
We know what Tampa is.
We know that Toronto is a great regular season team.
We know Boston doesn't know what a bad season looks like.
We know Sabres will bottom feed.
We know the Wings are in the midst of a rebuild.
Things we're pretty certain about:
Ottawa might be one of the best young teams in the NHL and will take a step next year.
Florida might not be a one hit wonder and might be a really good team again this season.
You factor in all the sure-things and the maybe's, and you kind of see Montreal maybe having a shot at a Wildcard if things pan out well?
Then again, the offseason isn't even 24 hours old... so... This Habs team could be very different come October.