WASHINGTON — “There’s something about the towels that just gives me the chills every time,” said Mike Matheson.
He grew up in Pointe-Claire, Que., a 30-minute drive from where those towels waved nearly every spring, from where the fans manipulating them roared at eardrum-splitting decibels in support of the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Playoffs at Bell Centre.
If you had told Matheson back then that he would have to accept an extended pause from watching that ritual unfold on his TV screen for the team to go through a proper rebuild, he’d have laughed at you.
“I don’t think I would’ve believed that was possible,” he said. “I guess from my perspective, there’s so much passion, and there’s always been so much passion, that it would be hard to think of a scenario where our fans could be understanding of a rebuild.”
You can imagine how the 31-year-old felt coming home to play for the Canadiens at the onset of the first official tear down in franchise history — with the fans just months removed from celebrating the team’s first appearance in the Stanley Cup Final in 28 years.
To say Matheson had some trepidation about how they might tolerate all the losing that comes with that process would be accurate.
But on the eve of the Canadiens’ first playoff appearance since the rebuild began, Matheson reflected on how fans of the team surprised him from Day 1.
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“It’s just that they got so close (in 2021) and then it finally fell off a cliff,” he said. “I think that’s when it’s one of the harder times to be a fan, when there’s not a whole lot of light at the end of the tunnel and you’re paying a lot of money to watch your team. You’re paying for parking, you’re paying for tickets, you’re paying for food and drinks and all that and your team’s getting blown out of the water on a lot of occasions. But I think what was so impressive the last three years is there were times when we’d be down 4-0 and come out for the third period to fans going wild, trying to get us going and do their part.
“That just shows how important the Canadiens are to the city, to these fans, and it shows how much they love the team.”
What does it mean to Matheson to help the Canadiens pay fans back for all that patience, acceptance and support?
“To be able to come in this year and kind of flip the script and give them something real to cheer about has felt so good,” he said, knowing the best is yet to come — and not just this spring, when Canadiens fans will put the flags back on their cars and prepare to honk their way through downtown traffic before arriving at their Bell Centre seats to pick up those playoff towels and wave them.
Matheson knows most of those fans didn’t expect the Canadiens to arrive at this juncture quite yet, and he also knows that seeing the young core made up of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Alex Newhook, Kaiden Guhle and Lane Hutson help drive the team to it inspired hope in the fanbase that this series with the Washington Capitals is but the first of many this team will play over the coming years.
Knowing those players make up one of the NHL’s most promising cores — with Ivan Demidov in tow and David Reinbacher and Jacob Fowler waiting in the wings — and knowing no member of it counts for more on the cap than Suzuki at $7.87 million is knowing that Monday’s game in Washington is the dawn of a new Canadiens era.
It’s stirring more than just excitement; it’s affirming belief.
The captain, who put up 30 goals and 89 points over the past 82 games, is locked in for each of the next five seasons for a pittance compared to what the few players of his calibre around the league will net over a stretch that will see the cap rise exponentially year over year, and that’s as good a reason as any for Canadiens fans to believe in the team’s future and to just be satisfied with the experience Suzuki and the other core members will gain over the coming days.
The fans already felt the chase to get in was valuable enough this season, so they view what’s coming next as just an unexpected bonus.
Coach Martin St. Louis, who was raised 30 minutes north of downtown Montreal, in Laval, Que., is happy to have given it to them.
“This market loves hockey, but it’s another level with the playoff hockey, and I think they all wish for that every year, and I think us as players, coaches, we want to give that to everybody,” he said before the Canadiens departed for Washington. “Growing up here, I couldn’t wait for the weather changing and the hockey in (spring), so we understand that it’s a big part of what makes this market so great is that playoff feel and we’re glad that we’re able to do that this year.”
Not satisfied, though.
St. Louis intends to push this further and has made the Canadiens believers, with Suzuki saying after they clinched in Game 82, “I like our chances against anybody.”
That was after he acknowledged that the top-seeded Capitals — who essentially led the Eastern Conference during the regular season from start to finish — will present an enormous challenge.
Matheson knows they will. He’s so mindful of that, that he won’t even permit himself to begin thinking of those towels waving at the Bell Centre come Friday.
“I know we have two really important games to worry about before I can even think about it, so I’m just focusing on that,” he said. “I think in the moment it’ll be really cool, but I’m just taking things right now as: We have a really good opportunity to be in the playoffs.
“This is my 10th year overall and it’s just the third time I’ve been in the playoffs — not including bubble play-in games (with Pittsburgh in 2020). You don’t get to do it every year, so I’m not really allowing myself to think ahead.”
St. Louis isn’t, either.
But for the man who never got to attend a playoff game at either the Forum or Bell Centre as a fan and only got to play in them as a member of the rival Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers, he is relishing the opportunity to coach the Canadiens in that atmosphere.
“It’s a fun time for everybody,” St. Louis said, “and we all know what it means to the market here, and it’s nice to be able to go through that.”
