Here comes our latest reminder that the NHL schedule is complete trash

The greatest rivalry in NHL history returns to TD Garden on Thursday night when the Canadiens come to TD Garden for a meeting with the league-best Bruins.

It will be the first time the Canadiens have skated on Boston ice since Jan. 12, 2022, and it will be the only time they visit Boston this season. That’s two visits in over 14 months. Or, in case you really wanna hate the world today, as many times as the Arizona Coyotes have been to TD Garden over that span.

In our undying quest to find “it,” I must confess that this ain’t it.

• Of course, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the 2022-23 edition of Bruins vs. Canadiens is must-watch TV like it was 10 years ago. The Canadiens are currently 18 points below the playoff line whereas the Bruins can clinch the Atlantic Division tonight with a win and a loss by the Maple Leafs.

  There’s a sizable gap between the two franchises, and this isn’t the first or last time that’ll be the case.

  But to have century-long rivals in the same division reduced to a head-to-head showdown total that makes it look like the Canadiens have become the Californians is just wrong. And everybody knows it.

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  MONTREAL, CANADA – JANUARY 24: Taylor Hall #71 of the Boston Bruins and Jordan Harris #54 of the Montreal Canadiens skate after the puck during the third period of the game at Centre Bell on January 24, 2023 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Boston Bruins defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4-2. (Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

• “Yeah, I would, [with] Montreal for sure,” Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery, who grew up in Montreal and even had a cup of coffee with the Habs during his playing career, admitted when asked if he’d like to see the league return to a schedule that featured more divisional head-to-heads. “I wish we played that team in particular more because it’s just the Black and Gold and it’s the Red, White, and Blue.

  “It’s tradition of the game for me.”

  That tradition has been on a steady decline, too. Part of that was to be expected as the NHL continued to grow over the years, but in a span of 14 years, the Bruins and Canadiens have gone from playing eight times per season down to just three this season. It’ll max out at four times per year under this current schedule matrix.

  It’s a ‘necessary’ evil for the league to accommodate at least two games against every opponent in the NHL, sure, but the NHL has effectively determined that rivalries will be created through playoff series and playoff series alone. In the case of Bruins and Canadiens, a 100-year blood feud with plenty of playoff showdowns has already established a disdain that simply doesn’t need another playoff series to ignite the fanbases.

  “Montreal and the Bruins used to play each other every year in the playoffs nearly the whole decade in the 70s, though the Flyers interrupted that for two years it seemed like” Montgomery noted. “And then in the 80s when it was the Adams Division there, it really seemed like they would beat Buffalo and Quebec and then it would be the Bruins and Canadiens in the next round, right?”

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  BOSTON, MA – JANUARY 12: Patrice Bergeron #37 and Matt Grzelcyk #48 of the Boston Bruins fight against Artturi Lehkonen #62, Brett Kulak #77 and Mike Hoffman #68 of the Montreal Canadiens during the third period at the TD Garden on January 12, 2022 in Boston, Massachusetts. The Bruins won 5-1. (Rich Gagnon/Getty Images)

• That rivalry was given new life in 2007 and carried on through 2014, with Brad Marchand playing the role of chief heel for the Bruins opposite the Canadiens’ P.K. Subban.

  You also had countless other villains and heroes depending on your point of view over this run, from Milan Lucic to Mike Komisarek to Zdeno Chara to Max Pacioretty. It also allowed players you had never really paid much attention to, such as Dale Weise, to become some of your most despised figures. And who could ever forget Tim Thomas feeding his blocker to Andrei Kostitsyn?

  “We had wars against them every regular season game,” Marchand recalled. “It was an absolute battle. You could tell we absolutely hated them. And there will always be a rivalry just because of history with Montreal.”

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  BOSTON, MA – JANUARY 30: Brad Marchand #63 of the Boston Bruins shoves Lars Eller #81 of the Montreal Canadiens in the face in the first period at TD Garden on January 30, 2014 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Jim Rogash/Getty Images)

• Marchand is also aware that the current rivalry picture has changed. A nonsensical playoff format implemented by the NHL has made Tampa Bay and Toronto the new top rivals for the Bruins. That’s because it’s quite literally impossible to avoid them on a run to the Stanley Cup. You can throw the Hurricanes in there, too, though that’s been organically created in a format that’s designed to be completely inorganic (perhaps it’s no wonder that that rivalry has become arguably the best among the current ‘big three’ for Boston).

  And even though the Bruins and Canadiens haven’t squared off in a playoff series in almost nine years now, these current replacements have struggled to match the ‘big fight feel’ that’s come with Bruins vs. Canadiens.

  With their history, with their proximity to one another (remember that feeling of biting your cheek when the buses from Montreal would invade the Garden and damn-near take it over back in the mid-2000s?), there’s simply nothing like these sides throwing down at TD Garden.

  But the NHL has essentially turned this this into just another game on the schedule.

  When 100 years tells you that it should be anything but.