The storybook season has come to a heartbreaking end for the Montreal Canadiens. The team that no one expected would make the playoffs was eliminated in game 7 of the 2nd round by the despised Ottawa Senators.

The mood in the Canadiens dressing room was one of shock and dissapointment. The team started the series strong with back-to-back road wins in Ottawa, but ultimately were not able to find a way to contain the high-powered Senators offence through the duration of the series. Steve Mason, the team's MVP and Jennings Trophy winner did all he could to give the team opportunities to win games, but couldn't save everything as the Senators put an unprescedented number of shots on net through the final 5 games of the series. The barrage was so siginificant, that after game 4 where Mason faced 50 shots, the Habs were forced to rest Mason for game 5 due to fatigue. The Habs were also without their #2 D-man for the entire series, in T.J. Brodie, who went down with a knee injury in the first-round series against Detroit. Brodie had been working feverishly to get back into the lineup, and likely would have made it back in the 3rd round, but unfortunatly the team wasn't able to get there.

Despite the dissapointing end, the season still should be viewed as a major success for the franchise, and a huge step forward after several years toiling in the basement and re-building. Lets not forget that it was only last year that the team finished a frachise worst 27th overall. The team was re-built from the ground up throughout the season, bringing in solid long-term cornerstone players such as Cam Fowler, Reilly Smith, Thomas Tatar and TJ Brodie to compliment an existing core of Vincent Trocheck, Jon Marchesseault, Jeff Skinner and Andrej Sustr. Add in the growth of Sven Andrighetto and Jake Guentzel, and the potential of prospects Joel Eriksson Ek, JFK and Timo Meier and it's hard not to be excited about the future of this franchise.

The team has some work to do in the offseason, but the potential is already there for another succssful year in 2017-2018. In addition to the aforementioned core, the team has Hanzal for 2 more years to play in the top-9 and veteran Jay Beagle (1 more year) and youngsters Matt Nieto and Gabriel Dumont to round out the 4th line. The D has Fowler, Brodie, Sustr and Hjalmarsson (2 more years) leading the way, though the 3rd pairing is a bit of an unknown at this point, and the team has been non-committal about the future of bruiser Mark Borowiecki. In net, the team has a capable tandem of Mason and Hutton, though it is expected that they will consider options to bolster their #1 goalie.

The team has several high-profile unrestricted free agents, including Joe Thornton (leading playoff scorer for Habs), Jussi Jokinen, Joel Ward, Keith Yandle and Andy Greene. It is expected that they will let Thornton walk, as they already have a solid core for their top-6 forwards, but there is plenty of speculation that Jokinen and/or Ward may be brought back to play on the 3rd line and that one or both of Yandle and Greene will be pursued for the 3rd pairing on D.

Overall, it has been a positive year for the organization, and the hope is that the young roster will learn from the playoff dissapointment.