The Montreal Canadiens eviscerated the Boston Bruins 5-0 at the Bell Centre last night as The Kid stood up to the pressure.
Montreal goaltender Carey Price, the son of the chief of B.C.’s Ulkatcho First Nation, was the feel-good story of the game, playing extremely well Monday night after allowing 10 goals in his previous two games — both losses (5-1 and 5-4).
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A lot of folks thought his luck had run out on the weekend, but as he proved last night, he’s a pretty cool 20-year-old customer. He played brilliantly in the first period when the Bruins outshot the Canadiens 11-8. His effort in the first period took much of the steam out of the Bruins engine and by the midway point of the second period, Boston had nothing left.
Montreal outshot Boston 17-6 in the second period and the Bruins appeared lost. It was a sad way to fade out of the picture in a series in which they had battled so hard and so effectively to even it up at 3-3.
The Habs did what they had to do and got a few breaks in the process.
Goal 1: Deflected shot, lucky bounce.
Goal 2: Great moves, great shot by Mark Streit.
Goal 3: Big rebound. Loose puck. No defence.
Goal 4: Andrei Kostitsyn’s second on the power play (meaningless).
Goal 5: Great passing play (completely meaningless).
It’s quite stunning, when you stop and think about it, but the Boston Bruins allowed three goals in the first 40 minutes of Game 7 and Aaron Ward and Zdeno Chara were on the ice for all three of them. Ward finished the game minus-4.
All season, Bruins coach Claude Julien had given Chara the responsibility of running the offence — and the defence — handing the big guy 20-plus minutes of ice time a game. So, one supposes, you could say it was inevitable that Chara would be on the ice when the Canadiens scored because he was on the ice more than any other Bruins’ player.
However, in a game as important as last night’s little soiree in Montreal, the leader has to lead. He has to set up the goals at one end and help stop them at the other and he did neither. Tim Thomas might not have been Vezina Trophy material last night (he did make a handful of huge saves, however), but it was hardly his fault. His big defenceman was outright horrible.
Meanwhile, Price proved his mettle. Whenever it appeared as if the Bruins were taking a serious run at the Habs, Price shut them down. He picked up his second shutout of the opening round of the playoffs and everyone in Montreal had forgotten that he’d allowed 10 goals in his last two games. Although Montreal outshot Boston 35-26, it was still a virtuoso performance.
Now, however, for Price and the Canadiens, life will only get tougher.
Back in the spring of 2004, my daughter Betsy and I pulled up to the Marriott in downtown Montreal and felt a difference. A decade earlier, I’d been in Montreal to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs and got the distinct impression that many folks really, really wanted to separate from Canada.