http://www.montrealgazette.com/
May 8, 2010
PITTSBURGH — The ice melted to springtime thin beneath the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night, just as Sergei Gonchar’s second-period snapshot kissed the mesh behind goalie Jaroslav Halak.
No big deal, you’ll reasonably suggest — the Canadiens rallied from 3-1, then 3-2 deficits in their Eastern Conference quarter-final series to tie, then eliminate the Washington Capitals, the best team in the National Hockey League’s regular season.
That is so. But the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Canadiens’ semifinal opponent, aren’t the Capitals. They are playing with a greater purpose; they are more a team than a swashbuckling band of individuals; and as of Saturday night, they have what appears to be an awakened Evgeni Malkin.
Montreal Canadiens Hal Gill grimaces as he gets hit and sent to the ice by Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby during NHL Eastern Conference semi final, game 5 action at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Saturday May 8th 2010.Photograph by: Allen McInnis, The Gazette
The Penguins’ 2-1 victory at Mellon Arena tilts this series sharply in Pittsburgh’s direction. And it offers their opponent yet another taste of a seemingly endless diet of desperation.
Adversity has been a buzzword for the Canadiens this entire season. It’s surely vibrating now through the team, which for the second time in as many playoff series awakens on the cusp of summer.
Penguins can’t fly, of course, and these birds from Pittsburgh remain as flightless as Tennessee Tuxedo. But this team will be only too happy to march by foot to the Eastern Conference final, just one more victory from that goal.
In Game 6 Monday night, the Canadiens will have the ear-splitting support of their Bell Centre cheerleaders. They’ll have the final line change in a bid to smother Malkin, and they’ll play with the knowledge that they’ve laced these no-tomorrow skates before.
The Canadiens were last faced with elimination on home ice, down 3-2, two weeks ago Monday. And they responded with a stirring, quite incredible 4-1 home-ice defeat of the Capitals.
That was the defining game, thus far, of Halak’s career, a 53-save masterpiece. Monday, Halak’s work will be judged a total success should he make just one more stop than Marc-Andre Fleury, his counterpart in the Penguins net.
The Canadiens had been in grave danger of returning here in a crater, having trailed the Penguins 2-1 after 40 minutes — and two periods in which the visitors were overwhelmingly dominant — in Thursday’s Game 4 at the Bell Centre.
But third-period goals by Maxim Lapierre and Brian Gionta lifted Montreal to a 3-2 victory and 2-2 tie in the series. It marked the first time this post-season they had won after having trailed through two periods.
History further notes that the Canadiens have won 26 of the 45 series in their history that were tied 2-2, most recently in the 2002 Eastern Conference quarter-final against Boston.
Saturday night’s match was the 89th Game 5 for the Canadiens, who now have a 54-35 won-lost record.
Malkin was all over the ice in this Penguins victory. He’s still not found the scoresheet with goal or assist at even-strength this series, but his rushing, playmaking and general involvement made things happen.
If Malkin’s stirring was long overdue, the Penguins also were delighted to welcome veteran Bill Guerin back to their lineup, a missing piece of valuable net presence in Games 3 and 4 in Montreal.
Guerin sat with an ailment that was described as everything from an elbow infection to back spasms. Call it upper/mid-body, since the elbow hangs near the small of the back.
Playing his 1,401st NHL game and sporting a salt-and-pepper beard of been-there-done-that, the 39-year-old, two-time Stanley Cup champion couldn’t resist taking a few good-natured pokes at himself.
“I’m 100 per cent, whatever that means,” he said, grinning. “I’m normal.”
Guerin said he wasn’t the least bit surprised the Penguins had been taken to at least six games by the Canadiens.
“No, not at all,” he said. “They’re a good hockey team. They proved that last round and proved it all year. They’ve got good players and a good coach (who) play a strong defensive system and they believe in it. This is a seven-game series. We’ve been ready for this and we’re prepared for it.”
The Canadiens hope they’ve not seen the end of the half-century-old Pittsburgh barn known as the Igloo, to be replaced next season by the Consol Energy Center.
They hope — no, they expect — to be back here Wednesday for Game 7.
“Nobody’s entitled to four-and-out,” Guerin said of this excellent series.
For the Penguins, six would be only perfect.
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