BOSTON - It may be hard to accept at this time, with the wounds of a series loss that could have very easily ended in a win still fresh, and still painful.

But really there is little, if anything, to be sad about this night if you are a supporter of the Club de Hockey Canadien.

Yes, it would have been fun to watch this team move on to the second round. And yes, they were very capable of doing it.

But if you look past just how close the Canadiens came to pulling the upset, how close they came to going seven for eight in elimination games over the past two playoffs, how close they came to proving so many people wrong yet again, I think you will see something that has not been seen around this franchise in quite some time.

This Canadiens team has two elite talents.

While many good, very good and excellent players have passed through Montreal over the past 20-odd years, there hasn't been much talent that is on the elite level.

Saku Koivu was gutsy, a competitor, a winner. But he was never elite, and if ever was it was always tempered by injuries.

Alex Kovalev, over his time here, was never an elite player. An excellent and supremely talented one? Absolutely. But not elite.

Jose Theodore was elite, but he was also alone in that category on the teams he played on in Montreal, and didn't stay in that category for very long.

Then there's Andrei Markov, who I have always considered to be elite but who has also been hampered by injuries.

No, the combination of Carey Price and P.K. Subban is unique.

If you project just a couple of years down the road, both these guys could be among the key players for the Canadian Olympic Team in 2014. They will assuredly be perennial All-Stars. And if the Canadiens play their cards right, they could both be here for a very long time.

And with some of the additional supporting pieces looking quite promising and sitting under 30 – Mike Cammalleri (28 years old), Tomas Plekanec (28), Josh Gorges (26), David Desharnais (24), Max Pacioretty (22), Lars Eller (21) – times haven't looked this good for the Canadiens in decades.

"We have a really good locker room," Price said after Game 7 Wednesday night. "We have a lot of guys that care a lot for each other in here. We have a lot of guys who would do anything for each other in here. That's good to see, because that's how you build good teams, with chemistry. We have a lot to look forward to next season."

With that, I will leave you for now. Because even though I'm sure many of you feel utterly disappointed with the result of Wednesday night, it is important to remember that this season of injury-riddled adversity was an important building block towards what looks like a very promising future for this team.

For more on the Habs final game of the season, check out the latest blogs by Brian Wilde and Eric Engels.