Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday on Sportsnet.ca and appears regularly on Hockeycentral.

Move over Ken Dryden. Make way Patrick Roy. It is Jaroslav Halak's time to shine.

The Montreal Canadiens will need one more Herculean effort if they hope to upset the highly-favoured Washington Capitals tonight in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference quarter-final series.

The truth of the matter is Halak is nowhere close to being in the same stratosphere as either of the famous Montreal stoppers.

Dryden came out of nowhere to help the Canadiens defeat the Big Bad Boston Bruins en route to capturing the Stanley Cup in 1970-71. Dryden's performance was so heroic, he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player in the playoffs. Not bad for a guy who spent most of the year in the minors and would go on to win rookie of the year the following season.

Similarly, Roy emerged as the Canadiens No. 1 goaltender in 1985-86 as a 20-year-old and led his team to the Stanley Cup, also taking home the Conn Smythe Trophy.

It's a little too late for Halak to write a comparable story. Not that he's over the hill at 24-years-old, but he has played parts of the last four seasons with the Canadiens, the past two splitting the net with Carey Price. In that time he has revealed moments of glory, but has never quite played good enough for long enough to make the crease his own. And who knows if he'll even be with the Habs next season? Halak, as well as Price, is slated to be a restricted free agent this summer. Both players want to be a No. 1 goalie, if not in Montreal, then somewhere else.

None of that matters today.

What matters is, can Halak pull one more rabbit out of his hat tonight in Washington? Thus far he has been the single difference between the Canadiens being sent home early by a super-charged offensive team that outscored them by 101 goals in the regular season. You just know the Capitals, who have been frustrated by his fish-out-of-water style of stopping pucks, will continue to throw everything they have his way. Through the first six games, Washington has out-shot Montreal 250-178 and are 23 shots away from equaling a franchise record for most shots in a series, 273 in 1986-87 against the New York Islanders. It is worth noting in that year Game 7 went to a fourth overtime period and although the Capitals finished with 75 shots on goal in the game, they lost.

This has been something of a tumultuous season for the Canadiens. Starting in the opening game of the year they lost their best player, defenceman Andrei Markov, to injury and other stars would also go down for long periods of time. GM Bob Gainey did a makeover of his team during the off-season in an effort to change its chemistry, but we never really got to see the fruit of his work until late in the year when the entire group was healthy.

In the meantime, Gainey left his post as general manager, turning the team over to his assistant Pierre Gauthier. His influence is still being felt, though.

Michael Cammalleri, who also missed 12 games with injury, has emerged as a leader on the team while Hal Gill, another newcomer who won the Cup last season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, has been a steadying influence on the ice and in the locker room.

They will be two of the players the Habs will lean on tonight in Game 7. But nobody will play a larger role than Halak. He will be the one charged with keeping Alex Ovechkin and company off the score sheet.

And that won't be easy.

So far in the series Ovechkin has piled up nine points, but he really hasn't brought his A game to the table, not even in Game 2 when he managed a goal and four points. You just know Ovechkin will be flying tonight. Alexander Semin, who scored 40 goals in 73 games this season, has yet to connect in the post-season despite firing 36 shots at the Montreal net. You have to wonder exactly how long he will go without scoring?

Beyond those two players, the Capitals have a number of others capable of lightning it up and my guess is they will be firing on all cylinders tonight.

Halak is still very much in the early stages of what promises to be an impressive NHL career. He will ultimately emerge as a bona fide No. 1 goaltender, if not in Montreal then elsewhere.

He can go a long way toward making that happen with a victory tonight.