Canadiens Cruise Into Second Round By Blanking Bruins
Posted April 21, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Andrei Kostitsyn scored two goals and rookie Carey Price posted a 25-save shutout to put the Montreal Canadiens and their ear-splitting fans into the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 5-0 victory over the Boston Bruins on Monday night.
The Canadiens won the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final 4-3, improving their record against the rival Bruins all-time in playoff series to 24-7.
Mike Komisarek, Mark Streit and Sergei Kostitsyn also scored for Montreal, which is now 5-2 in playoff Game 7s against Boston and 11-8 overall.
The Bruins came into the final game having tied the series with two straight wins in which they checked the Canadiens relentlessly and pumped five goals in each game past Price.
It appeared the Boston coach Claude Julien would do to Montreal what he did to Boston when he was coach of the Canadiens in 2004 — come back from a 1-3 deficit to beat a heavily favoured opponent.
Instead, Price played brilliantly to post his second shutout of the series and the Canadiens remained unbeaten at 27-0 when leading a series by 3-1.
Price returned to form after giving up five goals in each of the past two games, both Bruins victories.
“No, not at all,” Price told CBC when asked if he had questioned himself after the two recent poor performances. ” I knew I had to play better tonight, I think we all needed to play better and we did tonight.”
Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau, now 3-0 when wearing his lucky psychedelic tie, came up with a surprise, putting struggling winger Alex Kovalev on captain Saku Koivu’s line with Christopher Higgins and it produced the first goal 3:31 into the game.
Kovalev ragged the puck a long moment before feeding to Komisarek on the left point for a shot that changed direction after hitting Petteri Nokelainen’s stick in the slot, leaving Tim Thomas no chance for the save.
The rest of the hard-hitting first frame was all Boston, but Price made a smart stop on Marc Savard from point blank among a handful of good saves.
Streit came off the bench to take the puck, put it through big defenceman Zdeno Chara’s legs, collect it on the other side and deke Thomas between the pads 10:45 into the second frame.
Moments later, Price made his best save as he moved across the crease to thwart Marco Sturm on a 2-on-1 with Phil Kessel. From then on, the Bruins looked out of fuel and the Canadiens played with more and more confidence.
A Chara holding penalty had just ended when Andrei Kostitsyn took a pass from his brother Sergei in the slot and got a difficult shot off with the puck at his feet that beat Thomas to the glove side at 15:13.
The noise from the 21,273 singing, screaming, towel-twirling fans was deafening as the Canadiens killed off three penalties early in the third and their first trip to the second round since 2004 became apparent.
“It’s huge,” Price said of the crowd. “Especially down the stretch in the third period, when you don’t have your legs underneath you. When you have a crowd like this with all the white towels, it really gets you up and going.”
Andrei Kostitsyn added his second of the night on a power play with 2:02 left to play — only the third goal with the man advantage by Montreal in 33 chances in the series and Sergei Kostitsyn got another with eight seconds left in the game
Kovalev is now 6-0 in career Game 7s. Boston’s Game 7 record dropped to 9-8, including 0-4 on the road.
Other Monday NHL Playoff Scores:
Washington 4 @ Philadelphia 2
Photo Credit: Dave Sandford/Getty Images
