WASHINGTON, D.C – Tomas Plekanec’s stinging slapshot in overtime stole an unlikely victory for the Montreal Canadiens in game 1 on Thursday, but it was a battle of the two netminders on the night.
Plekanec and the Canadiens are heavy under dogs in the series, but played like men possessed after weathering the storm in the first period, where they were out shot 19 to 7 by the Presidents Trophy winners. Despite being so heavily out shot, it was the Habs who took the lead during with Mike Cammalleri’s thirteenth minute powerplay goal. The lead was short lived however as Joe Corvo, a deadline day acquisition for the Caps, fired through traffic just moments later to beat the unsighted netminder Jaroslav Halak.
Montreal rallied in the second period and came out fighting, but found former netminder Jose Theodore in fine form as well. Theodore would go on to make 35 saves on the night and put in one of his strongest performances of the season, bringing back memories of his 2002 Hart Trophy season with the Canadiens. Montreal actually out shot their hosts during the period, but both Theodore and Halak held firm to keeps the scores level by the second intermission.
With it all to play for going in to the 3rd period, it was again the Caps who came out with the extra jump early on. When the Canadiens defence failed to clear the puck veteran forward Mike Knuble was able to seize control of the play, and set Niklas Backstrom up with a neat drop pass. Backstrom built on his 33 regular season goals by firing past Halak with less than a minute of the period gone. Montreal refused to quit however, fighting tooth and nail for every inch. Their efforts were rewarded just before the mid way point of the period when Scott Gomez broke out of the Habs zone, fed a pass to Benoit Pouliot who found Gionta at the bottom of the face-off circle. Gionta’s smart heads up play allowed him to pick a hole right through four Caps defenceman and find Gomez again, who had a simple tap in after Mike Green failed to tie the Alaska native up in front of the net.
Neither side could find a way through to claim victory, and so overtime beckoned. Once more much of the early pressure was on Halak’s goal but Montreal held firm, surviving a goal mouth scramble as well as Jaroslav Spacek able to break up a 3-on-1when Brackstom over played the puck down low. And it was Spacek’s pass which allowed Plekanec to race forward and fire past Theodore for the game winner.
For the Canadiens it was a huge victory in front of a packed Verizon Centre crowd and a performance that will give Montreal fans everywhere a lot of heart for the rest of the series, starting with Saturdays game 2 in the American capital. Halak, highlighted by many as the key to the Habs chances this year, made an incredible 45 saves during the game but perhaps the other most significant stat for the Montreal defence is that they held superstar winger Alex Ovechkin without a single shot! Despite the array of talent among the Caps forwards, it’s hard to believe Montreal won’t take heart from keeping one of the leagues best players so quiet in front of his own fans.
And if the Canadiens continue to play in a similar vein to game 1, expect this to be a much tougher series than Washington, or many others, may have expected! Contact the author: rob.mcgregor@prohockeynews.com
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