MONTREAL, CANADA – The much-maligned first line of Milan Lucic, Nathan Horton and David Krejci combined for the game’s first two goals. They laid a foundation which allowed the desperate Boston Bruins to successfully survive a Montreal rally to climb back into the series.
In a series in which no home team has claimed a victory, it seemed fitting the Bruins would do well. Krejci’s opening goal was tallied with assistance from Patrice Bergeron whose feed enabled Krejci to snap a snap shot past Montreal’s Carey Price. Price, who played so well in the first two games of the series, then gave up a pair of soft goals. Horton was the first recipient of a lucky bounce when he banked the puck of Price’s back and into the goal.
Rich Peverely extended the lead to 3-0 when he converted an unforced give-away by Price. The goal was reminiscent of poor play by Price in the past. The Montreal goaltender casually went behind the net and flicked the puck up ice. The puck then struck Boston forward Mark Recchi before it went directly to Peverley and subsequently into the Montreal goal.
The main story of the evening was the return of Boston captain Zdeno Chara. Chara, who missed game two due to the effects of a virus, was back for game three and was directly involved in Montreal’s first goal.
Just minutes after Peverley took advantage of Price the Canadiens began their comeback attempt. Andrei Kostitsyn charged at Chara and instead of applying his physical advantage Chara kept giving ground to the shifty Canadiens forward. Kostitsyn took advantage of the uncontested space (unless you would like to call a couple of stick swipes contesting) and flipped a backhand on net that trickled between Boston netminder Tim Thomas’ legs. Suddenly the Bruins, losers of six straight playoff games were on the edge of disaster.
Tomas Plekanec narrowed the deficit to a single goal when he scored early in the final period on another shot that could have been stopped by Thomas.
Now trailing by a single goal, the Canadiens continued to press Thomas and the Bruins.
For the first time in the series the Bruins netminder played as advertised and stonewalled the home club despite several bell-ringing chances to even the match.
The game’s final score came on a patient play by Boston’s Chris Kelly. With the Montreal net open Kelly fended off a Canadiens defender through the neutral zone and once inside the blueline placed the puck into the open net.
With game four slated for Thursday night the clubs will take a rest. The Bruins organization has decided to escape from Canada and will practice in Lake Placid, New York. For the Bruins they hope they can recapture some of the magic of the US Olympic team. Meanwhile the stats show the Canadiens have lost the last two series in which they won the first two games on the road.
Montreal knows they let a game slip away and by doing so changed the face of this series. Montreal will need to raise their compete level in game four and show the hockey world once again why they dominated the Bruins during the regular season.
Contact Tom.Schettino@prohockeynews.com
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