ESPN's Bottom Line Widget

Monday, May 12, 2014

CANADIENS WIN BY COMMITTEE & FORCE A GAME 7!













             Earlier tonight in Montreal, it was do or die for the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs came out hitting, and no this is not a typo. The Habs were hitting everything and everyone that had the puck in the first. They out hit Boston 18-10 in the first. But 3 minutes in, the Habs opened the scoring. Miller lost control of the puck in behind his own net and it went to Lars Eller in front and he backhanded a puck past Rask to make it 1-0. The shots were 11-8 Montreal in the first. At the midway point of the second, the Habs couldn't clear the puck out of the zone. Gorges and Weaver were forced to take a 3 minute shift, they blocked a few shots and eventually they would get it out. Price made the save of the game on that shift as Lucic, had an empty net but Price dove across and got a stick on it. With under 5 minutes to go, Beaulieu flipped the puck up the middle to Pacioretty and he had a breakaway and he scored! 2-0 Habs. 2 minutes later, Habs on a powerplay,  Markovs shot was stopped, the rebound went to Pacioretty and he kicked the puck to Vanek, he had an empty net and scored!

         3-0 Habs.The shots were 12-10 Montreal in the second. With 4 minutes left to play, Rask headed for the bench for the extra attacker prematurely and the Bruins lost control of the puck at center to Desharanias and he played it to Vanek who fired a shot from center to make it 4-0. That would be the final as Carey Price made 26 saves for his 4th career playoff shutout (all coming against the Boston Bruins). "I never played at a pace like that before," Beaulieu said about his NHL playoff debut. "It was incredible. It was good to get the first period under my belt and I felt I settled down after that."In the loss, Rask made 22 saves."The second goal probably hurt us the most because we were spending a lot of time in their end and we had some great chances to tie the game, but that kind of turned the tide around," said Julien. "I didn't like the way they got their goals tonight.But we had more lines going than we've had this whole series.

             "We spent a lot of time in the offensive zone, but if you hit posts and miss open nets. . . You've got to bury those chances. Tonight they came back to haunt us." In 2014, Price had played in 4 elimination games, 3 in Sochi and 1 in Montreal, he is 4-0 and has only allowed 1 goal in total in all 4 games. Heres what Paciroetty had to say about playing in elimination games. "I was just waiting for my time to pitch in offensively," said Pacioretty. "Obviously you wanted it to happen more often in the playoffs, but it's two do-or-die games where I've scored a goal so I feel confident that I'm helping the team.You want to feel you're helping the team win and I think I did that tonight."Game 7 is Wednesday night in Boston.

- Andrew Di Pardo

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