Gary Bettman and the NHL spark controversy with what seems like a punishment for the Canadiens in Carolina
Martin St-Louis and the Canadiens got a rough pregame jolt after the NHL named Garrett Rank for Game 1 against Carolina.
Gary Bettman and the league made it official before the Montreal Canadiens faced the Carolina Hurricanes, and the reaction came fast.
For a big chunk of the fan base, this wasn't just routine playoff business. It landed like a warning sign a few hours before puck drop.
The referee assignment quickly turned into one of the main talking points around the matchup, especially in Montreal, where plenty of fans still haven't let go of an earlier grievance.
Renaud Lavoie delivered the update on social media, and his post immediately lit a fuse around the Canadiens.
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That line alone was enough to bring back bad memories for fans who still remember how a game in Edmonton slipped away earlier this season.
Old frustration returns at the worst time for Martin St-Louis and the Canadiens
Rank's name carries baggage in Montreal, and it didn't take long for that frustration to spill right back out in public.
I don't see how this could go wrong."
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That's the mood around this assignment.
Fans haven't forgotten that night, and neither has Martin St-Louis, who rarely says much about officiating unless something really crossed the line.
That Edmonton game was one of the few times St-Louis openly addressed the referees afterward, which says plenty on its own about how that night was received inside and outside the locker room.
Since then, Rank has developed a reputation among Canadiens supporters for being tied to calls that seem to go against Montreal at the worst possible moments.
Fair or not, that perception is real now, and it followed him into one of the biggest nights on the Canadiens' playoff path.
That's why this decision feels bigger than a normal referee announcement. It adds tension before a game that already had enough of it.
If the whistles become part of the story tonight, the reaction around Montreal will be loud, immediate, and impossible to miss.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 20, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Dylan Coghlan | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Nic Dowd | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Gabriel Landeskog | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Valeri Nichushkin | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ross Colton | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Tomas Hertl | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ben Hutton | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nathan MacKinnon | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mitch Marner | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brandon Saad | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Colton Sissons | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Devon Toews | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Ahcan | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| Brent Burns | - | - | - | |
| Jack Drury | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||