TAMPA, Fla. — The perfect team for these pandemic times dressed in the visiting locker room at Amalie Arena on Monday night. Just as the N.H.L. postseason started to reclaim a scrap of normalcy, with the Canadian bubbles of last summer replaced by games at home venues — and before frothing crowds, no less — along came the Montreal Canadiens.
They advanced to the Stanley Cup finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the reigning champions, with an interim interim coach, after ousting two of the league’s behemoths, and despite facing elimination not once or twice but three times in their first-round series.