Carey Price’s right in Game 1
Bruins stumped by goalie
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ShareAnyone expecting the Bruins [team stats] to trample over Montreal as they did in the Canadiens’ last two trips to the Garden had a very cold bucket of reality dumped on them last night.
In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals on Causeway Street, the Canadiens scored in the opening minutes and then added a late goal for a 2-0 victory against the Bruins and a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
The B’s worked for 82 games to earn home-ice advantage in this series, and now it’s in the hands of the Canadiens.
Brian Gionta scored the Montreal goals, both coming on defensive-zone turnovers by the Bruins. Carey Price stopped all 31 shots the hosts threw at him.
The Bruins at times dominated territorially, especially in the second period when they outshot the Habs 18-6, but they didn’t make Price’s job hard enough. He posted his third playoff shutout, all of which have come at the Bruins’ expense.
“We were all around the net, we just weren’t in front of it. That’s something that we have to get better,” B’s coach Claude Julien said.
The Canadiens followed the blueprint they used last postseason to upset Washington and Pittsburgh on their way to the conference finals. And the first rule of that template is to score the first goal, which they did just 2:44 into the game.
Tomas Kaberle fired a hard backhanded pass behind his net that was too hot for partner Dennis Seidenberg to handle, and it went to Montreal’s Scott Gomez along the left wall. Gomez then zipped a pass down to Gionta at the ride side of the net, and the Montreal captain beat Tim Thomas [stats] on a shot he had little chance to stop.
“I (passed it) too hard,” Kaberle said. “That wasn’t the plan, and it ended up on Gomez’ stick.”
From that point until the third period, the Bruins had waves of momentum and Kaberle had a couple of chances to atone for his mistake when he made two great passes to set up Brad Marchand. The first came on the Bruins’ first power-play opportunity (0-for-3 on the night) as Kaberle sent Marchand off on a clean break-in. Marchand made a nice move to his backhand, but he couldn’t lift it over Price’s left pad. The next one looked like a gift-wrapped goal for the rookie late in the first. Kaberle fired a terrific pass from the left point to Marchand for a backdoor goal but, with half the net staring at him, he heeled the puck and it went to the end boards.
“It was a perfect pass,” Marchand said. “I rushed it a bit. I should have tried to stop it and I would have had a wide-open net. But I just rushed it a bit.”
Every missed opportunity can come back to haunt you in the playoffs, and those were two right there. The B’s had a lot more in the second period, when Price was at his best.
But the Canadiens weathered that storm and played a much better third period, limiting the Bruins to five shots while the Montreal defensive pair of Hal Gill and P.K. Subban did a good job of shutting down the top line of Milan Lucic, David Krejci and Nathan Horton.
With the B’s pressing for the equalizer, Gomez stole the puck from Lucic as the forward was trying to break out of the zone. He fed it over to Gionta, whose shot broke through Thomas and into the net.
“I was trying to beat (Gomez),” Lucic said. “I created a lot of speed and he was kind of standing still, and I was trying to go around him. He did a really good job of reading what I was going to do and he created a turnover. And they got a goal. I can’t let that get to me. I can’t let that affect my play. I still got to go out there and do what I do and sometimes it is carrying the puck through the neutral zone.”
Now, with just one playoff game under their belts, the Bruins are looking at a must-win game here tomorrow night before heading to Montreal for Games 3 and 4. It may not be panic time for the B’s just yet, but it creeps up awfully quickly in the postseason.
In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals on Causeway Street, the Canadiens scored in the opening minutes and then added a late goal for a 2-0 victory against the Bruins and a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
The B’s worked for 82 games to earn home-ice advantage in this series, and now it’s in the hands of the Canadiens.
Brian Gionta scored the Montreal goals, both coming on defensive-zone turnovers by the Bruins. Carey Price stopped all 31 shots the hosts threw at him.
The Bruins at times dominated territorially, especially in the second period when they outshot the Habs 18-6, but they didn’t make Price’s job hard enough. He posted his third playoff shutout, all of which have come at the Bruins’ expense.
“We were all around the net, we just weren’t in front of it. That’s something that we have to get better,” B’s coach Claude Julien said.
The Canadiens followed the blueprint they used last postseason to upset Washington and Pittsburgh on their way to the conference finals. And the first rule of that template is to score the first goal, which they did just 2:44 into the game.
Tomas Kaberle fired a hard backhanded pass behind his net that was too hot for partner Dennis Seidenberg to handle, and it went to Montreal’s Scott Gomez along the left wall. Gomez then zipped a pass down to Gionta at the ride side of the net, and the Montreal captain beat Tim Thomas [stats] on a shot he had little chance to stop.
“I (passed it) too hard,” Kaberle said. “That wasn’t the plan, and it ended up on Gomez’ stick.”
From that point until the third period, the Bruins had waves of momentum and Kaberle had a couple of chances to atone for his mistake when he made two great passes to set up Brad Marchand. The first came on the Bruins’ first power-play opportunity (0-for-3 on the night) as Kaberle sent Marchand off on a clean break-in. Marchand made a nice move to his backhand, but he couldn’t lift it over Price’s left pad. The next one looked like a gift-wrapped goal for the rookie late in the first. Kaberle fired a terrific pass from the left point to Marchand for a backdoor goal but, with half the net staring at him, he heeled the puck and it went to the end boards.
“It was a perfect pass,” Marchand said. “I rushed it a bit. I should have tried to stop it and I would have had a wide-open net. But I just rushed it a bit.”
Every missed opportunity can come back to haunt you in the playoffs, and those were two right there. The B’s had a lot more in the second period, when Price was at his best.
But the Canadiens weathered that storm and played a much better third period, limiting the Bruins to five shots while the Montreal defensive pair of Hal Gill and P.K. Subban did a good job of shutting down the top line of Milan Lucic, David Krejci and Nathan Horton.
With the B’s pressing for the equalizer, Gomez stole the puck from Lucic as the forward was trying to break out of the zone. He fed it over to Gionta, whose shot broke through Thomas and into the net.
“I was trying to beat (Gomez),” Lucic said. “I created a lot of speed and he was kind of standing still, and I was trying to go around him. He did a really good job of reading what I was going to do and he created a turnover. And they got a goal. I can’t let that get to me. I can’t let that affect my play. I still got to go out there and do what I do and sometimes it is carrying the puck through the neutral zone.”
Now, with just one playoff game under their belts, the Bruins are looking at a must-win game here tomorrow night before heading to Montreal for Games 3 and 4. It may not be panic time for the B’s just yet, but it creeps up awfully quickly in the postseason.
“It’s not a secret,” Lucic said. “The Bell Centre is not an easy building for us to win in, especially this year, and it’s definitely a must-win (tomorrow) to try to get the split.”
sconroy@bostonherald.com. | Visit Steve Conroy’s blog, Bruins Insider
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