Canadiens eliminate Bruins; face Rangers in Eastern Conference Finals

The tension was so thick in TD Garden that the folks at home could probably feel it seeping from their television speakers.

After all, in each of the first six games of the Eastern Conference Semifinal series between the hometown Boston Bruins and their arch-nemesis from north of the border, the team that has scored first has been the victor - and just over two minutes in, the Montreal Canadiens had the lead.

Almost immediately afterward and amidst nervous rumblings from the capacity crowd, Bruins' forward Brad Marchand was thrown into the clinks for interfering with Habs' goalie Carey Price, giving Montreal a power play four short minutes later...

...down by a goal and shorthanded was pretty much the nightmare scenario for the Bruins to start the winner-take-all Game 7, and the Canadiens could smell the blood in the water, delivering as much punishment to the Bruins as they could muster without ending up in the box themselves, wanting to seize the opportunity to take total control of the game before the bear woke up.

Which happened just before the end of the first period, but the way that Canadiens' goalie Carey Price was playing, it didn't make any difference.

Max Pacioretty scored the game winner midway through the second period, joining Dale Weise and Daniel Brière with goals that the Bruins made look too easy, the Canadiens beating Boston at TD Garden by a score of 3-1 and advancing to the meet the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final.

Price was fantastic, stopping all but one of Boston's 30 shots - a Jarome Iginla power play goal the lone blemish - while Bruins' goaltender Tuukka Rask faced only 18 Canadiens' offerings, though it seemed like thrice as many, but allowed three to find the net as he was again victimized by sloppy defensive play in front of him and a relentless Montreal forecheck.

The Weise goal was as easy as they come - a textbook backdoor job set up by Daniel Brière, who drew the Bruins' box toward him to the left circle while Weise floated in behind the defenders, then it was just a matter of a simple pass across the low slot to the uncovered Canadien, who directed the point blank offering into the open net on Rask's glove side...

...Pacioretty's gamer playing out almost identically, this time Patrice Bergeron whiffing on a clearing attempt and with the Bruins anticipating a rush the other way vacating the zone, David Desharnais had only Torey Krug to beat, but instead slid a pass just out of reach of the sprawling defenseman and right into Pacioretty's wheelhouse for the one-timer and a two goal lead.

The Bruins got that one back with two minutes left in the middle frame on Iginla's redirect of a Krug drive, but untimely penalties and the swarming Canadiens defense ensured that Boston would get no closer, and Brière potted an insurance dagger with just under three minutes left in regulation, taking a Brendan Gallagher feed from the right wing and splitting Zdeno Chara and Matt Bartkowski and somehow slipping the puck between Rask and the goal post.

This one is going to sting for a while, the Bruins missing on two straight chances to eliminate their most hated rivals, outworked and outscored by a total of seven goals to one in losing the final two games of the series.

Comedy of errors doom Boston Bruins as Habs force Game 7

Boston Bruins' coach Claude Julien wanted his team to come out and match the desperation-fueled intensity that he expected the Montreal Canadiens to fire out of the gates with in Monday night's Game 6 as they tried to stave off elimination.

What he got instead was an ugly 4-0 loss and a winner-take-all Game 7 in Boston on Wednesday night.

Up three games to two and with a chance to clinch their best-of-seven Eastern Conference Semifinals series, the Bruins laid an egg, practically handing the Canadiens scoring chances as the Habs scored on two embarrassing defensive faux pas, one on a power play and one into an empty net to ice the game.

Habs' David Desharnais (51) makes a crazy save on a Jarome Iginla offering

The Bruins?  On Monday night they couldn't have scored at a bar full of cougars.

Especially the way that the Canadiens were contesting everything - laying out to block shots, winning on the dashers, causing chaos with their swarming neutral zone defense and tight zone box protecting the slot - the Montreal defensemen escorting the forwards to the wings and intercepting nearly every centering pass that actually made it through the lumber.

Despite all of that, the Bruins still made their own chances, but continued their post-season long habit of drawing iron and missing wide open nets, while the Canadiens connected on their opportunities, which were the kind served on a silver platter by the sloppy Bruins' defense.

The carnage started almost immediately, the Canadiens' pressure down low on Bruins' defenseman Torey Krug forcing a bounce pass to rookie blue liner Kevan Miller, who misplayed the funky carom and the puck squirted into the slot where Habs forward Lars Eller gathered it in and went backhand on Rask, who abandoned the crease to try and poke check the puck away from Eller.

That goal just 2:11 into the game turned out to be the eventual game winner, as Montreal goalie Carey Price stopped all 26 shots he faced to make the lead stand for the remaining 57:49 of regulation.

But the Bruins weren't finished making mistakes, and the Canadiens were far from finished scoring.

Montreal blew the game wide open with two goals during a short, intense 2:15 span of the late second period, rookie blue liner Nathan Beaulieu got hold of a deflected Loui Eriksson point drive and led Max Pacioretty with a tumbling stretch pass after he had released and gotten behind the defensive pairing of Zdeno Chara and Dougie Hamilton...

...Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask still had a chance to make a play on the puck, but perhaps thought better of it after the earlier Eller goal and got caught in no man's land when Pacioretty split the defense and reached the puck before Chara, planting the puck behind Rask for an easy 2-0 lead.

Tomas Vanek then made it a three goal lead, cleaning up a loose puck that emerged from a scrum in front of the Bruins' net with Gregory Campbell in the penalty box, poking it in the open net before Rask could square his shoulders, and the game was essentially over.

The only spark of energy that came from the Bruins was an eruption of frustration with 24 seconds remaining in the game - no gloves were dropped but that didn't prevent Chara and Jarome Iginla from shoving their gloved fists in Mike Weaver's and Brian Gionta's respective grills, perhaps trying to send a message in advance of Game 7 in Boston...

...but if that's all they have to hold on to, it's going to have to be enough as the desperation is now on both teams - and if the Bruins can't get up for a winner-take-all Game 7 against their oldest and most bitter rivals - if they can't find their effort, if they can't find the defensive intensity and close out the series, they have only to look back at Monday night's comedy of errors to realize where it went wrong.

Because when you gift wrap scoring chances the way the Bruins did, the present inside is called momentum - and going into an elimination game looming, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Boston Bruins on Paper - Home ice is nice, Bruins seek to keep it against Habs

As far as the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens are concerned, there may as well have been an old fashioned barn raising at the Bell Centre Thursday night - bright red structures at each end of the ice, the broad side facing the playing surface.

Because neither team could find the range or the angle to find twine, and even when a puck managed to make it past either goaltender, the result was the all-too-familiar metallic ping accompanied by a black blur and a collective groan from the thousands gathered to watch as the closest either team could get to a score in regulation was a glancing blow of the cross bar...

The Bruins mob rookie Matt Fraser after his game winner in OT

...that is, until a kid named Matt Fraser - who was sitting in a mexican restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island on Wednesday afternoon when the Bruins called and told him to pack his stuff and get to Montreal - found a puck spinning on the ice in the crease to the stick side Canadien's goalie Carey Price and poked it into the goal 1:15 into overtime to give the Bruins a 1-0 victory.

Leave it to the new guy to be the only one capable of hitting the broad side of a barn - and even then, it was like sneaking it through the back door.

"I can’t put it into words," said the unlikely hero, Fraser. "The excitement - again, I’m still shaking with excitement, and again, it’s every kid’s dream to score an overtime goal like that and to contribute."

And, yes.  That's cool, but right here, right now, that goal evened this best-of-seven series at two games apiece and has given the Bruins back their hard-earned home ice advantage - and it's time to put that advantage to good use.

That said, who will step up for the Bruins who, along with Montreal, have scored 11 goals in four game - a number that's a little deceiving in that each team has been shut out once in the series, meaning that they each have scored an average of nearly four goals per game when they do manage to score.

Many feel that it is time for the "KIL" line to step up, and perhaps they will now that Julien has his lines intact.  In the first three games, he had them mixed up with Paille on the third line and Jordan Caron on the checking line - but in Game 4, Paille was back on the Merlot Line and Caron was back in the press box in favor of Fraser.

Bruins' Projected Lineup

Forwards

Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Jarome Iginla

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Reilly Smith

Matt Fraser - Carl Soderberg - Loui Eriksson

Daniel Paille - Gregory Campbell - Shawn Thornton

Defensive pairings

Zdeno Chara - Dougie Hamilton

Andrej Meszaros - Johnny Boychuk

Torey Krug - Kevan Miller

Goaltenders

Tuukka Rask
Chad Johnson

"It's obviously a lot better to be 2-2 than down 3-1." Boston goalie Tuukka Rask said on Friday. "So, it is what it is, but as a team we know we can be a lot better on the ice, and in order to get more wins, we have to play better and stay focused on doing our jobs."

For his part, Bruins' coach Claude Julien is free and loose, aware that this is essentially the same team that earned the President's Trophy during the regular season - and that all they need to do is to play their brand of hockey and not worry about what the Canadiens are busy doing...

...which consists of coach Michel Therrien calling out his own top line of Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais and Bendan Gallagher for not holding the torch and producing as he thinks they should - just as Boston's David Krejci, Jarome Iginla and Milan Lucic have struggled offensively.

Reality is, the KIL line is just missing the net, while Montreal's top line is being shut down by the combination of Zdeno Chara and Dougie Hamilton on the Bruins' top defensive pairing.

 Canadiens' Projected Lineup

Forwards

Max Pacioretty - David Desharnais - Brendan Gallgher 

Michael Bournival -Tomas Plekanec - Tomas Vanek

Rene Bourque - Lars Eller -Brian Gionta

Travis Moen - Danny Briere - Dale Weise

Defensive pairings

Josh Gorges - P.K. Subban

Andrei Markov - Alexei Emelin

Douglas Murray - Mike Weaver

Goaltenders

Carey Price

Peter Budaj

“For me, I’m just trying to shut down their top lines and play physical on them and limit them." quipped Hamilton of shutting down the Habs top line. "We’ve just got to keep trying to do that. I think all our D have done a good job of that, just trying to stay aware and limit our mistakes.”

Of course, Therrien doesn't quite see it that way.

"If you look at the playoffs from the start, there are certain players that are having some trouble contributing offensively." said the outspoken Therrien. "These types of players need to adjust to the intensity of the playoffs. They are being checked very tightly, we're aware of it on both sides."

"But there's an intensity to the beginning of the season, an intensity to the middle of the season and there's an intensity to the end of the regular season." Therrien continued. "But when you get to the playoffs, it's another type of intensity. Those types of players need to adapt to that challenge."

Pacioretty chose to do a bit of fence-sitting in his reply to both Therrien's rant and Hamilton's assessment.

“It’s obvious that they want to pair certain guys against us. It’s not an excuse; it’s a good challenge." Pacioretty said, adding "We haven’t risen to that challenge yet. Myself personally, I’ve got to do a better job of being able to overcome that adversity.”

Whoever does the best job of overcoming that adversity is going to have a 3-2 lead in this series.