Jakub Dobes and Martin St-Louis head into Game 1 with the Montreal Canadiens still being cast as clear underdogs.
That's the bad news around the club before puck drop against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night.
The outside view still leans heavily the other way.
A fresh MoneyPuck projection gave Montreal just 14.5% odds to win the Stanley Cup.
That number says a lot about how little belief still surrounds this run.
And yet, there's another side to it.
The Canadiens opened the playoffs at 3.8%, so even this latest number reflects how much ground they've made up.
It also points out how other clubs were viewed earlier in the bracket.
Tampa Bay started at 6.6%, while Buffalo sat at 8.4%, which makes Montreal's climb harder to ignore.
Still, the matchup in front of them is where the story turns.
"The Canadiens' chances of winning the Stanley Cup have made a prodigious leap, even though the club remains the most overlooked in the final four"
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Carolina arrives as the biggest roadblock yet, and the Canadiens know this one won't look anything like the last two rounds.
Carolina brings a brutal test into Game 1
The Hurricanes haven't lost a game in these playoffs.
They swept Ottawa, then rolled through Philadelphia, piling up 8 straight wins before this series even began.
That streak is only part of it.
Rod Brind'Amour's team also got 12 days of rest, which the article describes as the longest layoff ever handed to a team in the modern NHL era.
Montreal has heard this kind of talk before.
In Round 1, 22 of 27 ESPN panelists picked Tampa Bay to beat the Canadiens, and in Round 2, 19 of 25 backed Buffalo.
The Canadiens answered both times. That's why the underdog tag may not bother this room much at all, especially with St-Louis' group continuing to feed off doubt.
It also reminds readers that Montreal got through part of this spring without Noah Dobson against the Lightning.
That made the climb even steeper for a young blue line.
Now it comes down to whether Dobes can swing the tone of the series right away.
Game 1 was set for 20:00 in Raleigh, with Game 3 scheduled for Monday, May 25, at 20:00 in Montreal.
Will the Montreal Canadiens beat the odds again?
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