Game 7 Recap – 3 Stars, Highlights, Presser: Habs Outplayed, Outwitted, Outlasted Bruins

Montreal Canadiens Playoffs  Game 11  Away game 6  |  Wednesday May 14, 2014 | Habs win second round series 4-3
	Game Recap: The Canadiens got off to a quick start with Brandon Prust digging the puck out to Danny Briere who fed a wide open Dale Weise. The Habs were unable to capitalize on their power-play opportunities so it was left to Carey Price to endure the storm when Boston mounted an attack. There would be no third period comeback as the Habs shut down the Bruins offense. Montreal controlled and frustrated the Bruins throughout the game and the series. Plus / Minus ▲   Carey Price, Lars Eller, Andrei Markov, Alexei Emelin, Josh Gorges, Max Pacioretty, Tomas Plekanec,  Brendan Gallagher, Dale Weise, Daniel Briere ▼   Rene Bourque, Michael Bournival, Thomas Vanek, Nathan Beaulieu
3	1

Boxscore:

Summary:
Goal Scorers: MTL  Weise(3), Pacioretty(3), Briere(2) BOS   Iginla(5) Goalies: MTL Price (W)  8-3-1 BOS Rask (L) 7-5-1

Shots on Goal:

NHL Three Stars
	Max Pacioretty  MTL  Carey Price  MTL Patrice Bergeron  BOS

Head coach Michel Therrien

• “This is a great accomplishment from that group, and we just beat the best team in the league. We were down 2-to-3, and we showed a lot of character, a lot of passion. To be able to win the series here in Boston, it’s a tough place for teams to come and play here. I’m really proud about the performance of our players.”
• “Carey Price is a leader for us. He’s calm, he competes. We went to play those tough game, he won the gold medal (at the Olympics) and again tonight he was outstanding. He’s a true leader for us.”
• “[Carey Price] is a young goalie. He matured. He became a leader with us. Obviously he’s an important player for our hockey club.”
• “I thought that we deserved to win that series. That’s another step.”
• “To be able to do that accomplishment, to beat the Boston Bruins in Game 7 in their building, I believe those guys earned some respect. The respect, you got to earn it, and I think tonight, those guys earned it.”
• “I’m not going to talk about the other team, I never talk about the other team. We were a group that was really, really motivated to win the series.”
• “You need depth to be able to get success. Since the start of the playoffs, we (have) used our depth. Danny Briere‘s line with (Brandon Prust) Prusty and (Dale Weise) Weisey picked up the first goal. Certainly it was a boost of motivation and confidence. The third goal was a big goal for us. Danny was really productive tonight.”

Goalie Carey Price 

• “I am ecstatic. I don’t show it a whole lot, but at the same time you have to realize that it’s not over. We are only halfway there.”
• On his speech to the team during the second intermission: “It wasn’t much. It was just a reminder to live in the moment. That’s all I really said. That’s the truth. At this time of year, it’s easy to let your emotions get carried away, especially in a situation like tonight. I thought our guys … I don’t even think they really needed for me to say anything. I thought we were a really composed group the whole series.”
• I think respect comes with winning, there’s no question about it. That’s a really good hockey team over there. They’re hard to beat. But when you do beat a team like this, I definitely think you earn a little bit of respect.”

Captain Brian Gionta

• “It’s a big rival, and it was a big series. Anytime that you can come in and knock off the number one team in the league, you know you’re doing something right. You know your group is on the right track. I thought we had a great series battling hard against a great team, and we came out on top.”

Forward Max Pacioretty

• “[Carey Price] is on a whole other level right now. He’s a leader; he’s the guy on this team. They had us hemmed in there a bit, he comes back to the bench for the TV timeout — sometimes you see goalies yelling at their defensemen or giving the team a hard time — he comes over and cracks jokes. He’s winking.”
• During the second period intermission: “[Carey Price] was more confident than I’ve ever seen him before. He spoke up and said something like, ‘Only live in the moment, don’t worry about the past.’ I don’t know if that’s the difference in his game this year from every other year, but I’m speechless with how he’s playing.”

Forward Dale Weise

• “As the series went on, I think our motivation grew. They just disrespected us in every single way and I didn’t think they had any respect for us as a team. We’ll leave it at that.”
• “From the beginning of the series, we were very comfortable playing that team. I think that everybody else doubted us. I heard someone on the TSN panel said they were the perfect hockey club. I don’t know what that says about us now.”
• “They just have some guys that do some disrespectful things, even in the handshake they had a couple guys, or sorry just one, that couldn’t put it behind him and be a good loser. Milan Lucic had a few things to say to a couple guys. You look at a guy like Shawn Thornton who has been around the league and he plays hard. He plays that role and he had good things to say to everybody. He lost with class and Milan Lucic just couldn’t do that. Well, I won’t get into what he said. It’s just poor; it’s just a poor way to lose.”

Defenseman P.K. Subban

• “There’s nothing better than shutting up everybody here.”
• “I think at some point a lot of people were saying, ‘Don’t poke the bear.’ Well, I thought they gave us many reasons to keep competing throughout the series.”
• “Before the series, everybody was looking at them as a team that has all the experience and has two big lines and guys who have won Norris Trophies and Selke nominees, who are great players. But we have some good players on our team as well, guys who are great hockey players, who are driven and ready to compete at this level and at the highest stage. Maybe we had to do something like this to earn that respect, but I think it’s just been a long time coming for our team and maybe a coming out party for our team.”
• “Listen, it comes down to respect. I think we’ve done a lot of great things in this league since I’ve been here. Our team’s done a lot. But we failed to get the respect that I think we deserve, and I think we earned that.”
• “Especially for the guys that have been here and were there in that run in 2010 and who were there when we lost Game 7 in 2011, we’re just sick and tired of it. Sick and tired of people disrespecting us and not giving us the credit that we deserve. We’re a good group of guys in here. We’re a character group and I think we earned a lot of respect tonight.”

Bruins forward Milan Lucic

• Said in the handshake line to Dale Weise and Alexei Emelin: “I’m going to f—— kill you next year.”
• “It was said on the ice, so it will stay on the ice. So if [Dale Weise] wants to be a baby about it, he can make it public.”
• “Disrespect, I don’t know what they’re talking about, disrespect. Having a goal celebration, what kind of disrespect is that?”
• “We just didn’t play our game in these last two when we needed to. They were able to execute on the chances they were able to create and we weren’t.”
• “It sucks, that’s it. It sucks. (We had) high expectations, we wanted to get back there. We felt that we had a good enough team to win and we didn’t.”
• “It’s frustrating, I don’t know what else to say, we lost. We let our fans down when we had a great opportunity with a team like this. It’s a tough one to swallow.”
• On effort level: “That’s why we lost. That’s why we lost, I can’t elaborate more on it. That’s why we lost.”

Bruins goalie Tuuka Rask

• “Shocking, especially when you think you have a great team, and we did have a great team, but it goes to prove again that winning the regular season doesn’t mean anything. We played a pretty decent first series and then this series we didn’t take that next step and improve our game and that’s it. That’s just the reality and we have to live with it.”

Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron

• “The first goal definitely sucked the energy out of us and it was hard to get it back. Bottom line, we’ve got to execute and score. We’ve definitely got to give them some credit where they deserve it, but we’ve got to be better.”

Bruins head coach Claude Julien

• “At this time of year, you have to play your best hockey of the year. I don’t think that we got to that point. I don’t think that we played badly but we certainly weren’t playing as good as we could, to be a team that would move ahead. No doubt it’s a disappointing night for us.”
• “You always got to give credit to the team that moves ahead, and I’ll tell you one thing their goaltender Carey Price was outstanding. He gave them a chance to win every night. There were some nights we thought we could have come out with a win, but the way he played, he allowed that team to win every night, and certainly when you play the way he did, it gave his team a lot of confidence. So that was, to me, one of the keys to their success, was how strong Carey Price played for them.”
• “They talk about disrespect and I don’t think we disrespected them. There’s a rivalry here… we don’t like each other because it’s a rivalry.”
• “Unfortunately everything we did seemed to be seen as disrespect in Montreal. And we heard a lot of whining in terms of the series, but it had nothing to do with disrespect. Whether it’s flexing a muscle, that’s gamesmanship. It’s like that in every round. So it’s too bad it gets blown out of proportion, but you know what? They won the series fair and square. They were the better team tonight and you have to respect that. So it’s up to us to move on, and them to keep moving towards their goal.”

To look back at the full lineups for tonight’s game, check the Game Day preview.

Follow @All_Habs on Twitter