MONTREAL — At Bell Centre, there is a team that cannot wait for the N.H.L. playoffs to begin.

After tinkering for months and striving for the proper balance of style and substance, this team feels confident about entertaining the home crowd deep into June. The evidence, the team knows, will be found along the ice and on the scoreboard. But this is the time of year when its members anticipate proving — to themselves, to fans, to observers around the league — that they can handle these heightened expectations.

Because there is pressure in being a part of the Montreal Canadiens’ game presentation staff.

Like the hockey team beginning its Stanley Cup chase Wednesday against the Ottawa Senators at Bell Centre, the employees on the third and fifth floors are trying to produce the best show of the playoffs. And it is a show: an 11-minute extravaganza that elevates the genre of pregame performances beyond faux decibel meters, make-some-noise graphics and blaring rock music.

In last year’s mesmerizing installment, a spotlight flashed on every Stanley Cup banner hanging from the rafters, all 24 of them, for one second each. The ice, through the artifice of three-dimensional rendering, appeared to undulate and swell. A projection system transmitted footage of past Canadiens greats onto its surface.