 | Montreal Canadiens: CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS |
The Montreal Canadiens followed up a monumental upset by pulling off another, and now the Pittsburgh Penguins are joining the Washington Capitals in sitting out the rest of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Brian Gionta had two power-play goals, Mike Cammalleri scored his seventh goal of a series in which he upstaged Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and the Canadiens built a stunning four-goal lead before beating the Penguins 5-2 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Wednesday night.
Believe it, Canadiens. Disbelieve it, Penguins.
Montreal, about the last team anyone would have picked to beat the top-seeded Capitals, much less the reigning NHL champion Penguins, accomplished what no team has done since the current playoffs format was adopted in 1994. And that's beat the Presidents' Trophy winners and the Stanley Cup champions in successive rounds as an eighth-seeded team.
When it ended, the Canadiens crowded around goalie Jaroslav Halak , who made 37 saves in a performance not quite as dominating as that in Montreal's 2-1 elimination win of Washington, but one that sent the Penguins home and shut down the NHL's oldest arena.
As remarkable as the upset was -- the Canadiens trailed 3-2 in the series before rallying to win the final two games -- was how they did it. They silenced the standing room crowd of 17,132 in the last game played at 49-year-old Mellon Arena by seizing a 1-0 lead with only 32 seconds gone after Crosby took a bad penalty on his first shift, then built it to 4-0 with barely 25 minutes gone.
Gionta scored on that Crosby- created power play, Dominic Moore made it 2-0 later in the period and Cammalleri scored his playoff-leading 12th goal at 3:32 of the second. The Penguins and their shellshocked crowd almost couldn't seem to fathom what was happening.
The tone was set when Crosby was called for driving Josh Gorges into the boards with 10 seconds gone -- it was Pittsburgh that took the bad penalties, made the wrong decisions, stood around as the other team skated past them.
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=321398
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| "CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS" | Login/Create an Account | 33 comments |
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Re: CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS (Score: 1)
by Boston_Bruins (sdhfsbhf@hotmail.com) on Wednesday, May 12
(User Info | Send a Message) | SO close to my dream ECF but the Bruins... wow. Time for a good old-fashioned rant.
I am giving the Bruins a 0.00000000001% chance of winning game 7. Why give the Bruins so much credit? Well, because they finally solved Michael "I don't know what rust is" Leighton, showing that they knew the object of the game is to make the puck cross the goal line.
This is undoubtedly one of the biggest collapses in hockey history. The Bruins played pretty well in game 4 but came out on the wrong side of the score in overtime. Fair enough. Game 5 they play probably their worst game of the season. Not cool, but they still have some breathing room. Game 6 they play almost as bad as game 5 except for stretches in the second period. Definitely not cool.
Knowing fans in Boston you might even hear some boos before the puck drops. That'll get them grasping their sticks even tighter. Who knows maybe we'll get to see Wideman shit his pants and feed Briere with a tape-to-tape pass for a one-timer just as Ryder slides into Rask, taking him out.
The worst part of all this is Rask. You just know now that whenever anyone mentions him they'll be like "Hey, wasn't that the goalie that blew the 3-0 lead?" This is just not fair to him. Although his stats are way down in this series he really has been great again, and maybe even better than he was against Buffalo. The usually stout Boston defense has disappeared and it seems most of the goals he lets in are more or less impossible to stop coming from screens and mad scrambles.
I hope I am being far too pessimistic and that I get pleasantly surprised on Friday with the post-deadline Bruins showing up rather than the pre-deadline Bruins. But unless Rask can stop those near impossible shots and the Bruins can pop in a lucky one it's going to be a new low-point of many for a Bruins fan. Another plus will be taking an unprecedented amount of chirping from my friends at school on Monday. One of the benefits of being a Bruins fan in Canada.
And even though I hate the Habs more than anything, good job on pulling out the win. Impressive to say the least. |
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Re: CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS (Score: 1)
by nordiques100 on Wednesday, May 12
(User Info | Send a Message) | nice to see we'll have a completely different final than the last two years even though last year it was a beauty series between det and pitt.
good too that its what goes around comes around for bettman. he may have won the phoenix battle, but the worst thing for him happened here: a canadian team destroying his dream of ovy and sid hoisting the cup.
honestly though, the pens and wings for that matter were gassed.
102 and 104 games respectively in 08
106 and 105 in 09
95 and 94 this year.
that's 303 games for pitt in 3 years, 303 for the wings. throw in the olympics for several of these guys and you have a lot of miles used up. i just dont think the top guns for both these teams had much more to give.
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Re: CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS (Score: 1)
by leafy on Wednesday, May 12
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I have to admit, about 4 months ago, I didn't think Montreal was even a playoff caliber team. They were not playing well at all and I was almost sure they'd miss the playoffs.
But they kept hanging around that 8 seed and seemed to get better. I watched them in one game against L.A. just after the Olympics and they looked like a completely different team. But at the time, I didn't think much of it.
Then came the final game of the regular season against the Leafs. Montreal needed a point to get into the playoffs. Yet all they could manage was an OT loss against the last place Leafs. And they really struggled to even get that point.
Then when they clinched a date with Washington, I was sure they were toast. In hindsight, RJ Umberger was right. He said Washington plays "all wrong", relying mostly on long passes to score, but those plays are easily stopped in the playoffs.
Anyway, when they upset the Caps, I was again almost 95% sure they'd be stopped by Pittsburgh. The Pens were starting to click against Ottawa and are proven winners. The Caps only lost because they can't play defense.
Well here we are 2 weeks later. Another stunning upset!
Now I'm thinking, if they can beat powerhouses like Washington and Pittsburgh, they might be able to beat anybody. We shall see.
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Re: CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS (Score: 1)
by leafy on Wednesday, May 12
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I was just thinking, historically, Montreal has always played Pittsburgh well. As far back as I can remember, from the 1970s, the Habs have always had the Pens number. Pittsburgh has never beaten Montreal in a playoff series, as far as I can recall.
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Re: CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS (Score: 1)
by LeafsLegacy on Wednesday, May 12
(User Info | Send a Message) | | And just to think the Leafs almost knocked them out of the playoffs. : |
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Re: CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS (Score: 1)
by TheLeafNation91 on Thursday, May 13
(User Info | Send a Message) | im gonna comment on Vancouver-Chicago
Im sorry, Vancouver is not the better team, as much as that 7-mil paid piece of garbage thinks they were
I watched every game this series and realized something really scary about the Hawks, that team can grind out a team and make them soar for months
im sorry, vancouver is one of the most grittiest teams in the league, and watching the hawks just grind them to nothing was truly amazing to watch, have never seen that in a series in my liife, and even scarier is the hawks might be the most freshest team in the league, they look like they can play 100 straight games and do it perfectly
also, they have the goal scorers, the great defence, the checking line, the norris guy, the guys who love being infront of the net, the smart agitators...everything but a goalie, but niemi has been enough to get them farther
i didnt think it a first, but leafy made a great point about the hawks, they are a scary team and think they will get past the sharks
hey...if boland can destroy the unstoppable sedins...watch out sharks
also...congratz habs |
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Re: CANADIENS BEAT PENGUINS IN GAME 7 TO ADVANCE TO EAST FINALS (Score: 1)
by HABSSTAR (loserleafs@hotmail.com) on Thursday, May 13
(User Info | Send a Message) | Cammalleri has been a beast in these playoffs, that's something that has been mostly overlooked cause of the Halak story.
Where was this team during the regular season? You know what, I don't even care. I'm just damned happy they showed up for the playoffs. Everything else from here on out is gravy.
I feel bad for shitting on Gainey now... :-( |
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