Canadiens Shut-Out Bruins 1-0

The Montreal Canadiens shut-out the Boston Bruins 1-0 tonight, by doing so, the Habs take a 3-1 series lead back to the Bell Centre on Thursday where they will try to end the series.

The lone scorer for the Habs was Patrice Brisebois who was assisted by Andrei Kostitsyn, and Alex Kovalev. The big story in this game wasn’t the hitting, of which there was alot of again, but the spectacular saves by Carey Price, of which he made 27 for the shut-out.

Carey Price is showing why general manager Bob Gainey chose Price over Christobal Huet. Price has been great so far in the post season, sure the Bruins don’t have the talent that the Pittsburgh Penguins do, or the New York Rangers, but they have had there share of great scoring chances anyway. For a twenty year old goalie to be making his NHL play-off debut, and playing so well gives the fans more confidence in the Habs upper management.

Once again the Canadiens supporting cast played better than the stars of the team, Brisebois scored for the Habs, and in the previous games, Brian Smolinski, Tom Kostopolous, and so on, anyone see a pattern here? Does this team really miss Koivu that much?

For the Habs to play the Bruins in the first round is a little lucky I guess. Francis Bouillon, and Saku Koivu are still out after they both took shots off their feet a couple of games before the end of the season, so I guess playing a team that is deprived of their best player to start the play-offs is a good thing.

Mike Komisarek, and Andrei Markov both played more than 25 minutes in this game. The team played a little better than in the two previous games, but let’s face it, I know that the play-offs is a different season, but the highest scoring team in the league scoring only two goals in 2 games, come on! It’s time for the Habs to show the Bruins why they scored so many goals this year, sure in the post season it’s little more difficult, but two goals in 2 games doesn’t quite cut it, lucky for the Habs they have a 20 year old goalie named Carey Price.

Francis Bouillon hopes to be ready for Thursday’s game, or Saturday if necessary. For Saku Koivu, he has an x-ray appointment Wednesday morning in Montreal, if the broken bone in his foot has healed enough, the doctor may give Koivu the green light to start skating, meaning hopefully Koivu will be ready to play on Saturday if necessary.

Michael Ryder was a healthy scratch tonight, Ryan O’Byrne played well in his first post season game. Perhaps one could say that the Habs played decent road games, and hey, they still split the two games in Boston. Let’s hope that the Habs get their act together and show the Bruins who scored the most goals in the league this year and win the series on home ice on Thursday.