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MONTREAL - The Canadiens have been here before this spring, down and seemingly done.
With a chance to tie the Eastern Conference final, the Habs came up with one of their weakest efforts of the post-season in losing 3-0 to the Philadelphia Flyers and fell behind 3-1 in the series Saturday.
So, can the Canadiens keep the magic going in elimination games?
They are 5-0 when facing the end of their season during this playoff run.
“Here we go again,” said Canadiens winger Mike Cammalleri. “Let’s win three in a row.”
The Canadiens were also down and faced elimination in both their previous series, bouncing back from a 3-1 deficit against the Washington Capitals in the first round and overcoming a 3-2 deficit against the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in the last round.
“We know we can beat these guys. We’ve been there before,” said rookie defenceman P.K. Subban, whose turnover at the Philly line late in the second period led to the Flyers’ second goal.
The Flyers will have a chance to win the series Monday night in Philly and advance to their first Stanley Cup final since 1997 where they were swept in four games by the Detroit Red Wings.
The speed which saw the Habs overwhelm the Flyers in Game 3 was absent and the Habs looked like a tired team that had hit a wall. They had just 17 shots on Philly goaltender Michael Leighton - just one in the second period - as Leighton shut out the Canadiens for the third time in the series, the first time anybody’s done that to the Habs. He had looked vulnerable in Game 3, but the Canadiens never really came close to finding out what kind of game he had Saturday.
The Flyers showed up to win the battles in which they had been dominated in Game 3, ruled the boards and played a much more disciplined game in the neutral zone, not permitting the Canadiens the room to create the strong entries they had enjoyed in Game 3. The Flyers dominated just about every area of the game. They won 68 percent of the faceoffs and blocked 27 shots.
Flyers defencemen Kimmo Timonen and Chris Pronger made great passes off Montreal turnovers at the Philly blue line to send Claude Giroux and Ville Leino in to score on Canadiens goaltender Jaroslav Halak.
Pronger’s strong cross-ice, blue-line-to-blue-line pass came after Subban’s turnover and that kind of summed up the Canadiens’ day.
“I think it comes down to what I was saying earlier, not managing our puck well. It was near the end of a shift, and we didn’t get the puck in deep. It’s a turnover,” said Canadiens coach Jacques Martin. “He’s a young kid that wants to do well, has the heart at the right place. It’s learning for him, it’s experience and realizing that in a game like tonight you’ve got to be patient. You’ve got to make the right decisions. I’m sure he knows that.”
The Canadiens were handed a couple of power plays in the third period, but couldn’t get any kind of coherent attack going, leading to the Bell Centre crowd booing their effort with Arron Asham in the box with five minutes to go.
Montreal’s Maxim Lapierre, one of the few Habs to have some jump, had a chance with 2:25 to go, but couldn’t get one of his three whacks at it under Leighton.
Giroux added his second of the game into an empty net with 73 seconds left in the game.
Flyers captain Mike Richards, who had termed the 5-1 loss in Game 3, “an old-fashioned ass-kicking,” was pleased with his team’s answer.
“Yeah, we’ve responded all year from disappointing losses, and tonight was no different, full confidence that we would do that, and we played well tonight,” he said.
Now, the question is, what will be the Habs’ response?