The 2020-21 Montreal Canadiens are one of the best stories in recent memory.

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Battling through all the byproducts of a COVID-marred and shortened regular season, a team that finished just three games over .500 went on an improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final. They bowed out to the closest thing we have to a modern-day dynasty in the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Looking back on it two years later, portrays it in a more bittersweet light. The run marked the end of three players’ NHL careers and to a degree, their livelihoods.

Future Hall of Fame goaltender Carey Price played through a knee injury on their postseason run. While his 12.3 goals saved above expected (via MoneyPuck) guided his team to some massive upsets, he’s played just five games since and is all but retired while still recovering from multiple procedures on his knee.

It also marked the true end to the career of the team’s captain, Shea Weber. The then-35-year-old played through multiple injuries during the team’s postseason run, but it was a lingering ankle issue that prevented him from returning to play.

While those two stories are well-known, the story of Paul Byron isn’t. The fan favorite missed nine games near the end of the regular season with a hip injury but returned to play just in time for Montréal’s playoff run to begin.

He would power through, recording three goals and three assists in 22 games as the Habs marched on through to the Final. The injury would eventually require surgery, however, which he had undergone during the offseason.

Byron played just 27 games before reaggravating the injury, unofficially ending his career.

The struggles that many athletes face after retirement, not just in hockey, are well-documented. Over-exerting and exacerbating chronic injuries shorten careers and add to the many social and financial hurdles players face after their careers conclude.

Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog is in a similar situation after playing through a knee injury on his way to lifting the Stanley Cup in 2022. He’ll miss back-to-back seasons this year due to an additional surgery on his knee – this time, a cartilage transplant. 

Landeskog may tell you playing through the injury was worth it – he won a Cup, after all. He didn’t speak publically much throughout the 2022-23 season while attempting to rehabilitate and get back into action for the team.

The reality stands, though, that Landeskog’s outcome is rare. One out of 32 teams wins a championship every year, and many more teams have players who sacrifice their longer-term health for a chance at winning.

It boils down to a single question: is a championship – nay, a chance at a championship – worth years of chronic pain? The culture that exists now says yes.

The fix to that, as with most things in this sport, is bettering the structure for inclusion in the sport. A wider variety of personalities and backgrounds inherently introduces new perspectives, which can shift the value system of an environment that glorifies sacrificial pain.

As that expectation fades, the sport will provide a more sustainable and accessible environment – tangibly growing the game.