Canadiens legend Dryden pumped for 'magic' of Stanley Cup Playoffs

MONTREAL – Ken Dryden is preparing to settle in front of his TV for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Hall of Fame goalie knows exactly what he expects to see.

"It's magic," Dryden said in conversation from Toronto on Thursday, the morning after having watched the Montreal Canadiens advance to the postseason with their Game 82 win against the visiting Carolina Hurricanes.

"I always pay a lot of attention when the playoffs begin, especially the first round. Every night you've got a couple of games on. With all the series, there's surely going to be a big upset. There are going to be a couple of near upsets. A couple of blowouts.

Ken Dryden speaks on Feb. 14, 2025, during the NHL Alumni Association ceremony in Montreal to honor Canada's 1972 Summit Series team as the organization's Keith Magnuson Man of the Year.

"You're going back-to-back with games every night. It's amazing. It's almost as if, while there are all these games, there's one long continuous game. Each exciting moment of one comes to feel as if it's part of an exciting moment of the next and the next and the next… you end up reacting as if it's one game, all of these things that are happening in one game that's going on night after night."

Dryden, 77, knows very well the dynamics of the playoffs. As a member of the 1970s powerhouse Canadiens, he went to the postseason in each of his seven-plus seasons, winning his first of six Stanley Cup championships in 1971 before he even was considered an NHL rookie -- for which he won the Calder Trophy in 1972.

Dryden also won the 1971 Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs and was a five-time winner of the Vezina Trophy for his goals-against excellence, leading to his 1983 Hockey Hall of Fame election.

Ken Dryden (r.) with the 1971 Conn Smythe Trophy he was voted as MVP of the postseason, alongside Canadiens captain Jean Beliveau (l.) and Henri Richard with the Stanley Cup during the team's victory parade.

The Canadiens' situation was crystal clear on Wednesday: a single point against the Hurricanes would qualify them for the playoffs. Lose in regulation and they'd await the outcome of Thursday's game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Islanders. A regulation win for Columbus would have given the Blue Jackets the second wild card and bounced Montreal.

The Hurricanes gave the Canadiens all they could handle before Montreal finally emerged with a 4-2 Bell Centre win and a ticket to face the Washington Capitals, beginning Monday at Capital One Arena (7 p.m. ET, MNMT, ESPN, SN, TVAS).

With the Canadiens struggling in the second period, fans sweating it out in an anxious arena, Dryden didn't merely feel their concern, he shared some of it.

"There's always concern," he said. "I never think that anybody's going to win. They're going to have to earn it. Was it like that when I was as a player? Absolutely. Who's going to earn it more?

Artist Michel Lapensee's painting celebrating Canadiens' Ken Dryden, and a portrait taken early in the goalie's 1970s career.

"The Canadiens were in the position that they wanted to be in and needed to be in. It was in their hands; they make the playoffs if they win. That's all you can hope for. Then you go out and do it. They did and that was terrific.

"I feel bad for Columbus because they were terrific all year and they really earned something. The good thing about all of this for them is that they know. They know they earned something; they did something special. It didn't add up to a playoff spot, but they earned something big over the course of the year. That will stay inside them and good for them."

Dryden was outside the mold of the swashbuckling, brash Canadiens of the 1970s, a studious man who chose to sit out the 1973-74 season over a contract dispute, earning a relative pittance that year articling for a Toronto law firm. He would return to anchor the Canadiens' run of four consecutive championships from 1976 through his final game in 1979.

His illustrious career merely set the table for his full, rewarding post-hockey life as a lawyer and much more. He has been a three-time Olympic hockey analyst, author or co-author of an impressive library of books, newspaper and magazine columnist and essayist, elected member of Canada's Parliament, the Youth Commissioner for his native province of Ontario and president of the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1997-2004.

From left, 1972 Summit Series stars Paul Henderson, Ken Dryden, Serge Savard and Yvan Cournoyer acknowledge fans during the 4 Nations Face-Off game between the United States and Canada at Montreal's Bell Centre on Feb. 15, 2025.

Dryden's reflective "The Game," first published in 1983, is widely viewed as the finest, most insightful hockey book ever written.

He has also been a professor at Montreal's McGill University and a television producer, having co-created and co-produced the six-part CBC TV series "We Are Canada," showcasing young, innovative Canadians to help celebrate the nation's 150th birthday in 2017.

In the next few weeks, Dryden will be a fan, his patriotic eye focused on the five Canada-based teams, and 11 others in the postseason, with matchups including a robust Battle of Ontario between the Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators.

It's the first round, four series in each conference, that always intrigues Dryden the most.

"You have the biggest chances for the biggest upsets because you have the biggest range of teams in that first round," he said. "You've got the possibility of not just the big team stories, but you've got the big individual stories of the player who's coming from nowhere, scoring these winning goals. Or it's the goalie. Whatever it is, it's a candy store.

Boston Bruins' Johnny Bucyk, Montreal Canadiens' Ken Dryden and two youth hockey players during the Bruins' Dec. 1, 2024, Centennial game ceremonial puck drop at TD Garden, taken by Brad Marchand (l.) and Nick Suzuki.

"Beyond the first round at a certain point, injuries will start to happen and the underdog will have a harder time. The emotion is there but sometimes the grind can overcome and overwhelm the emotion. It just seems that by the time you get to the third round or the Final, things seem to kind of follow a certain course. There are fewer surprises. But the first round is just magic."

Dryden won't be pulling for any one team, though the Canadiens obviously have a special place in his heart.

"There are certain teams that I have a certain affection for and in some cases a big affection, but I end up really kind of hoping for the team that deserves to win," he said. "It becomes clear with each game in a series who is really earning it. There are very few teams that I really don't like, there are very few that I really, really like a lot. I can come to like, a lot, a team that's really earning it, even a team that I have no history with at all.

Ken Dryden holds aloft the Montreal Canadiens' ceremonial torch before the team's Bell Centre home opener on Oct. 16, 2014.

"Watch them on the ice in a particular game or series, it's just clear. I'll think, 'Look at what they're doing, look at them out there. They deserve it.' I'm glad they win in the end, whatever that team happens to be."

Dryden will not be filling out a playoff bracket or drafting a team in a fantasy league. His interest in each game will be purely for the drama on the ice and the many storylines, those predictable and totally unexpected, that will unfold.

"Whoever will win the Stanley Cup will have earned it," he said. "That's why you play the game. The players are going to determine it. I'm not going to determine it with whatever I think or do with any fantasy league.

"It's in the players' hands and those hands are terrific and exciting and competitive. Whoever makes it to the end is going to have completely earned and deserved it."

Top photo: Ken Dryden deflects a puck to the corner during an early 1970s game at the Montreal Forum.