What a great game! The Canadiens played their brand of hockey and dominated! The game plan was to use team speed and good puck movement and the Habs executed very well. After the game most players spoke to moving their feet and moving the puck forward. A job well done. And along the way they included a physical element outhitting the Bruins 37-25.
Evidence of a good team effort is that about 6 players were candidates for three star honours. The offense was on track getting four 5 on 5 goals from three different lines. The Higgins line was terrific. The defense played well only allowing the Bruins 18 shots on goal (the Canadiens had 32). With so little action, Carey Price took about a half period to get into the game but was solid after that. His puck handling was particularly good as the game went on. (Kelly Hrudey marvelled at Carey’s puck handling during the 1st intermission.) Price made a great save on Sturm in all alone in the third.
The Kostitsyn brothers each scored giving the Canadiens a 2-0 lead only 2 minutes into the game. Besides the goal, Sergei K had 3 hits in the game. Tom Kostopoulos had 5 hits and a goal even with only 10 minutes of icetime. Steve Begin and Max Lapierre also played a physical game with 10 hits combined. Tomas Plekanec made a great pass to setup Andrei K’s goal. Pleks also had a good night in the faceoff circle at 68%.
Individually on defense, Roman Hamrlik was solid with 6 hits and 5 blocked shots. Hamrlik nailed Milan Lucic, the Bruins most physical player, with a thundering check behind the Canadiens goal. Josh Gorges looked more comfortable being back to his #5/6 defensive slot. He was very effective with a couple of hits and 6 blocked shots. It was great to see Andrei Markov’s reaction when Glenn Murray ran Price going right after him? Markov has been playing with an edge of late. Mark Streit, with only one game of playoff experience, may have been battling some nerves as his normally accurate shots from the point rarely hit the net. Mike Komisarek had an inconsistent game coming back from his injury. He logged 17 minutes and blocked 4 shots but went chasing hits on a few occasions putting himself out of position. That was the case on the Bruins goal with MK leaving two Bruins alone in front of Price to tip the point shot. Patrice Brisebois proved his playoff experience was meaningless as he played an error-filled game. (I’ll resist the temptation to list the sins.) Let’s just hope to see Ryan O’Byrne back in the line-up for the remainder of the series.
As mentioned, the Canadiens played well and scored all of their goals at even strength. The flip side is that the power play did not look sharp. The Canadiens were 0 for 5 including a full two minute 5 on 3 opportunity.
Pregame:
Elliot Friedman on Alex Kovalev: AK never got his day with the Stanley Cup when the Rangers won in ’94 due to a “scheduling snafu”.
Guy Carbonneau claimed that he would be calm on game night. He said: “I’ve played 231 playoff games. That’s probably more than both teams combined”. Yet during the anthem, Carbo looked nervous standing alone in the tunnel. Unrelated, Guy promised and delivered by wearing ‘the ugly tie my wife gave me’ for the first game of the playoffs.
Rocket’s 3 stars:
1. Tom Kostopoulos
2. Roman Hamrlik
3. Sergei Kostitsyn
(photo credit: AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Ryan Remiorz)