MONTREAL — It was a season with 110 points, franchise records for Carey Price and all kinds of promise.
If it ends in the next few days, it will all have been for naught.
The one thing the Montreal Canadiens can’t hide from as this series with Ottawa veers towards Game 6 is that the stakes are mounting. The Stanley Cup playoffs always reveal character and a Habs team that has been questioned all year must show some now.
“You know what about pressure? They’ve got pressure and we have pressure,” coach Michel Therrien said Saturday. “Both teams want to win. When you want to win, you’ve got that little pressure. It’s a good thing.”
Montreal will take its third shot at ending this first-round series on Sunday night and it best not miss out again. That would set up an anything-can-happen Game 7, where the Canadiens could become just the fifth team in NHL history to squander a 3-0 series lead.
Despite hanging around the top of the Eastern Conference throughout the regular season, and winning the Atlantic Division title, Montreal wasn’t given much respect.
They have been written off as an average team carried to greater heights by Price, the best goaltender in the sport. That thesis was supported by below average puck possession stats, which ironically haven’t been an issue in this series with the Senators.
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What has haunted them is an inability to score, especially since Craig Anderson took over the Ottawa crease in Game 3, and went about stopping 120 of 123 shots since.
Price didn’t have his best game in a 5-1 loss on Friday night, but that was partly academic since his teammates failed to hit the back of the net until the third period. He’s obviously going to need a little more support for the Habs to get an elusive fourth win over Ottawa.
“Carey’s bailed us out so many times this year, but I think it’s our turn to return the favour,” said winger Max Pacioretty. “Right now it comes down to offence. It’s tough to score goals on Anderson right now but we’ve found ways to score goals in tough situations before.”
A natural place to start would be the power play, where Montreal is a paltry 1-for-19 in this series. It has been an issue all year long and is getting magnified now.
Therrien also has a responsibility to make adjustments heading into Game 6 — something counterpart Dave Cameron has done with success. Perhaps winger P.A. Parenteau, or even veteran defenceman
Sergei Gonchar, might be inserted into the lineup to try and spark the offence.
Pacioretty believes the team got a little “too comfortable” while facing the same opponent five times in 10 days and urged his teammates to get out of their comfort zone. However, he also pointed out that a strong start to Game 5 was “probably our best hockey we’ve played in a long time” and likes his team’s chances if it can put another 40-plus shots on Anderson.
He was looking forward to a clean slate.
“As someone who has scored a lot of goals, if you get caught up in the past you’re only going to play mind tricks on yourself,” said Pacioretty.
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There has been a strange rhythm to this series. It started out white hot with the Senators trying to exert their physical dominance and P.K. Subban two-handing Mark Stone across the right wrist, but has since cooled.
Tempers spiked late in Friday’s game when Anderson and Montreal winger Brandon Prust exchanged some pokes and jabs with their sticks. Cameron called it an “extremely cheap” play, but Therrien countered with a different version of events.
“Prusty paid the price,” said Therrien. “He got poked on the rib.
The problem was probably Anderson ended up poking the wrong guy.”
As a team, the Habs have been metaphorically poked by a pesky Senators squad that refuses to go down easy. On Sunday night they will need to summon some kind of response.
For a group that has been doubted in the hockey world for months, it is an opportunity to show what they are made of.
“We’ll rise to the occasion,” said winger Dale Weise.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence in our best players,” said Therrien. “They know. They know they have to be better.”
For the first time all series Montreal is facing some pressure. There’s simply no avoiding it; it always crops up eventually when you’re playing hockey in the spring.
“It would look that way,” said Pacioretty. “But we win a game, we win a series. We can only worry about the future.”
The future is now.