Marc Savard has taken a lot of flak for his lack of playoff experience. Widely considered one of the best passers in the league, Savard made no mistake in converting a great feed from Dennis Wideman to pull the Bruins to within a game of the Canadiens in their best of seven series.
It marked the second straight game that Boston has outplayed the Habs and this time they got the win. Tim Thomas was brilliant in making several stops through the third period and overtime to give his team a chance. Carey Price sparkled at the other end of the ice and couldn't be faulted on either goal.
There are some causes for concern for Habs fans. Mike Komisarek is back, but still hasn't looked like the shutdown guy that was drawing comparisons to Scott Stevens during the regular season. Saku Koivu and Francis Bouillon continue to recover from injuries suffered late in the season and their absence is becoming more evident. Mark Streit was brutal on the coverage of Bruins wrecking ball Milan Lucic on the first goal and it's becoming more and more obvious that he's more suited to playing forward when the going gets rough.
The Habs first line and power play were shut down big-time last night, due in part to Claude Julien having last change and also to the Canadiens inability to get pucks into the slot and high percentage shooting lanes when it counted. Adjustments need to be made.
Tomorrow night's game is HUGE, they say a playoff series doesn't really start until the home team loses a game. The Canadiens need to get this one started tomorrow night.
1 comment:
I'm totally with you. The Habs need to win tomorrow. We can keep trading home games, but the longer this series goes the worse it is on our guys. Going into this series was like going into a debate with W. the only way you meet expectations is with total slaughter, a slight victory is not enough. That's right, a Bush analogy for a hockey series, I went there.
Also, I can't tell you how funny it is to hear Bruins fans chanting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" after the game, only with me to inform them that we have more Americans than they do.
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