The question I've been asked over and over since Saturday night isn't whether or not the Canadiens can beat the Boston Bruins in their first round series that gets going Thursday night, but rather how many games it will take for the Canadiens to be knocked out.

It's truly amazing to me how many people in this city have developed a complex about the Bruins over the result of two regular season road games.

The Bruins had a great season, and they have a very good team with a nice mix of talent, size and grit up and down the lineup. But I refuse to believe the Bruins are unbeatable and that they will run away with this series.

There are a number of reasons why I have a tendency to think that way, but I think they are all centered around the fact this Canadiens team knows how to win.

They may not have won the Stanley Cup last spring, but they surely showed a winning edge in getting to within three games of a bid in the final.

They also haven't won on a prolific basis this season, but they did enough to overcome a lot of obstacles to make it into the tournament, and only the Philadelphia Flyers have a better appreciation than these Canadiens of the opportunity that is available to you once you do that.

This may sound to many of you like brutal homerism, and once I'm done here I'm sure many will still feel that way, but I sincerely believe the Canadiens mental edge will allow them to prevail over the Bruins in an ultimate seventh game in Boston.

Good pressure vs. bad pressure

I like to think I'm able to look at the Canadiens objectively, but watching last spring's ride and how this team was able to come together through it showed me something about the people Bob Gainey brought in two summers ago.

Hal Gill showed me a ton, and I don't think I need to explain why. Mike Cammalleri, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta showed me that size is but a number. Jaroslav Spacek showed how his savvy and poise is valuable. And Jacques Martin – who like most head men was helped a great deal by his coaching staff – showed me an ability to make adjustments and to game plan in the playoffs, something that's been a knock on him his whole career.

The team became a team at the right time last spring, and there is far from any guarantee that can happen again.

Except it sure helps when you know how that process is supposed to work.

"When you get to playoff hockey everyone realizes just how much you need to rely on one another," Cammalleri said Monday. "Hockey's the consummate team sport. No matter how great an individual plays, you're not going to be successful unless you have the other guy with you. To me, in my opinion, the ultimate bonding and the ultimate trust is built on the ice, and the playoffs lends itself to that."

The Canadiens have been asked a ton of questions over their first two days of preparing for the series about last spring, about that improbable run to the Eastern Conference Finals, about whether or not they can match it or even better it this year.

There's an inherent pressure in using that playoff performance as a standard, but in my eyes it's a good pressure.

The bar is only that high because you made it that high.

Meanwhile in Boston, questions naturally linger about the Bruins inability to close the deal in the second round against the Flyers, blowing a 3-0 series lead and a 3-0 lead in Game 7 to be eliminated.

That's an entirely different kind of pressure, one based on previous failures rather than successes, and one I feel can be more prone to triggering tangible effects in a team's play and how they handle certain situations.

This is where I feel the Canadiens greatest advantage lies, that they are in a position where they are not only comfortable, but where they have succeeded before – that of the underdog.

Tacking on to the same theme, and as I noted on Saturday night, the Canadiens have more rings and more games of playoff experience than their opponents.

But as Captain Gionta said, that will only get you so far.

"Obviously experience is a big thing, but at the end of the day that doesn't win you a series," he said Monday. "You need to go out and perform."

Match-up myths are prevalent

Which brings us to the actual match-up, the ability of one team's players to compete with the other team's.

The goalies are clearly a wash, I personally give the edge on defence to Montreal and at forward to Boston. But special teams are definitively on Montreal's side, and everyone knows the increased importance of that aspect of the game come playoff time.

The Bruins biggest advantage that has grabbed the focus and attention not only in Montreal but across the hockey world has been on their size, particularly their forwards.

Except, and this may shock you, their forwards as a group are not all that big, and they are nowhere as big as the Washington Capitals forwards were in last year's playoffs.

If you consider a 6-foot, 200-pound man to be large, the Bruins have four forwards that reach that minimum: Daniel Paille (6-foot, 200 pounds, according to his listing at NHL.com), Shawn Thornton (6-2, 217), Milan Lucic (6-4, 220) and Nathan Horton (6-2, 229).

Of course, guys like Gregory Campbell and even Mark Recchi play far bigger than their size, but the same could be said for a lot of the little guys on the Canadiens.

Now look at the Capitals forwards the Canadiens beat last season: Boyd Gordon (6-1, 200), Brooks Laich (6-2, 200), Matt Bradley (6-3, 201), Alex Semin (6-2, 208), Nicklas Backstrom (6-1, 210), Eric Fehr (6-4, 212), David Steckel (6-5, 215), Jason Chimera (6-2, 216), Mike Knuble (6-3, 223) and finally Alex Ovechkin (6-2, 233).

That is 10 of the Capitals 12 forwards last season, and though guys like Backstrom and Semin aren't overly physical, even if you take them out that's still two thirds of their forwards that you would think would give the Canadiens problems.

And they did cause immense problems, as the Capitals third and fourth lines forced the Canadiens defencemen to pay a price with every puck that was dumped into the corner while Knuble and Laich were immovable forces in front, much like Lucic surely will be.

But because of the Capitals run-and-gun style, the fact they put a major emphasis on using this clear physical advantage to its fullest potential got completely swept under the rug, overshadowed by Washington's inability to score on the power play and Ovechkin's and Semin's inability to do much of anything.

Still, in spite of being consistently pounded by Washington's big forwards, the Canadiens advanced by adopting a mentality of paying the price and applying a system around Jaroslav Halak that took full advantage of his status as the team's greatest asset.

There's no doubt Lucic will be a load to play against, as will Zdeno Chara at the other end of the ice, but the Bruins are not blessed with as much physical brawn as most people assume. They have a dogged determination to play physical hockey, that is true, but that's not a game plan based on height and weight.

Nor is it a game plan the Canadiens haven't already proven they can beat.

Two regular season games can't decide everything

This overriding perception of the physical dominance of the Bruins over the Canadiens is basically rooted in two games.

But looking at those two games is also a perfect example of how the hype machine is not rooted in reality.

The first of the two is obviously the 8-6 brawlfest won by the Bruins on home ice Feb. 9, snapping a five-game losing streak against the Canadiens. The first half of that game, the Bruins took advantage of an absolutely brutal night for the line of Gomez, Lars Eller and Andrei Kostitsyn to go up 5-3 just past the midway point of the second period – with that entire line sitting at minus-4 at that time.

Only five seconds after Lucic made it 5-3, the nasty stuff began, yet somehow the game has been banked as an example of how the Bruins brawn finally – after failing five straight games and in nine of the previous 10 between the teams – scared the Canadiens into submission.

Now just remember the talk leading up to the next game between the two teams on March 8, how the city was overrun with people screaming for the Canadiens to call up an enforcer because the Big Bad Bruins were going to lay another pounding on them.

It was very similar to the talk in the city all this week.

And what happened?

The Canadiens were leading 4-0 just over 35 minutes into the game when Chara laid the hit that was heard around the hockey world, knocking Max Pacioretty out cold and perhaps out for the season.

Yet that one hit again overshadowed the fact the Canadiens outclassed the Bruins in a game where everyone thought they would play scared. They didn't play scared at all, least of all Pacioretty who never would have tried to squeeze through the boards and Chara if he was.

My point here, even though you probably believe differently by now, is that the basis for the arguments against a Canadiens win is based on conceptions that aren't necessarily true.

The mental edge goes to Montreal

A lot of people are looking at the final meeting between the two clubs, a 7-0 Bruins win on home ice where nothing of a violent nature occurred – and which was 3-0 after 40 minutes – as the final piece of proof the Canadiens are an intimidated team based on what happened the previous two times.

The way I look at it, those two prior games showed to what extent the Canadiens had managed to burrow themselves into the Bruins collective psyche.

Why exactly were the Bruins so eager to show they could beat up the Canadiens on Feb. 9? Aside from their losing streak against them, it appeared to stem from two things.

First, P.K. Subban's big, clean hit on Brad Marchand on Dec. 16 that had the Bruins chasing after him, but for which Subban never "answered the bell" as the saying goes. The Bruins continued chasing after Subban in the next game, and the game after that, and in every game since.

The second was Pacioretty giving Chara a shove after scoring an overtime winner to complete a two-goal comeback in the final three minutes of regulation, one where Chara was on the ice for all three Canadiens goals in a 3-2 win Jan. 8.

Afterwards, Pacioretty was laughing at his stupidity and dreading how his teammates who stepped in for him, led by Gill, would let him hear it for starting that unnecessary scuffle that ensued at the end.

Except that little shove appeared to stay in the Bruins collective psyche once more.

Since that time, we've heard a lot of talk from the Bruins about how they "hate" the Canadiens (Lucic's words), and how their dirty, conniving ways get under their skin (Marchand's words, albeit paraphrased).

I'm sure some of that hatred exists on the Canadiens side, but never have we heard any overt admission of it, even the morning after that beatdown in Boston.

No, the Canadiens are built on a psychological philosophy of remaining even keel, never too high and never too low, one that was reinforced by erasing a 3-1 series deficit against Washington last season and a 3-2 deficit against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

That's why I believe that even if the Canadiens lose Game 1 Thursday night, even if they're blown out, they won't be rattled. They'll simply draw confidence from the fact they've been there before.

But what if the Bruins lose Game 1? Or Game 2? What impact will that have on them? What experience will they draw on to build confidence? Last season's playoffs? Their success against the Canadiens?

In a match-up that I consider to be more even than most, I think this mental edge will be the difference. Put this Canadiens team in a Game 7 situation against a favoured Bruins team trying to erase a playoff embarrassment, and I think experience and poise wins it.

Above all other tangible factors in the series, this proven mental fortitude is the one area where the Canadiens are truly elite.