The Canadiens walked into a building Thursday night where they had lost their last two games by a combined score of 15-6, where they were beat up one time and completely outclassed the next, where the crowd is about as hostile as they come, and where they were supposed to have no chance of winning.

Except poise does count in the playoffs, and poise comes from experience.

The Canadiens may not have size, they may lack physical toughness, but they ooze poise.

The Boston Bruins do not.

In a nutshell, that was one of the biggest differences in the Canadiens 2-0 Game 1 win in Boston, and will be one of the biggest factors in determining how the Bruins are able to react to losing their fifth straight playoff game dating back to last season.

Tough questions to come

The Bruins will be faced with a lot of difficult questions Friday, both from the media and in their own minds.

Even if the Bruins bounce back and win Game 2 at home, the damage has been done. The Canadiens have home ice advantage in the series and have some degree of security in the knowledge they've beaten Boston four straight times at the Bell Centre, dating back to Feb. 7, 2010.

That of course doesn't mean the Canadiens can't lose at home, but it's no secret they play far better at the Bell Centre than they do on enemy rinks, and as of right now Montreal simply has to defend home ice to win the series.

Just knowing that builds confidence.

Then there's the play of Carey Price, stopping 31 shots and claiming his third career playoff shutout, all of them against Boston. In spite of his obvious coming of age season, his career playoff record wasn't all that good.

But Price was poise personified, especially in the second period when he made 18 of his 31 saves as his Canadiens teammates had trouble even touching the puck, let alone controlling it.

Building confidence? Can Scott Gomez's performance be described in any other terms? His two assists on Brian Gionta's two goals came off turnovers he created, a fine reward for a game where he was engaged throughout and played with a purpose he sorely lacked in about 90 per cent of his previous games this season.

But Gomez has a history of doing this, so we shouldn't be that surprised. He now has 61 points in his last 62 playoff games over the past seven years, a sample size large enough to slap the "playoff performer" label on the guy. Not worth $8 million, but pretty darned valuable nonetheless.

Or how about P.K. Subban logging a game-high 27 minutes of ice time and quietly dominating practically every second of it? The best part about it is that performance was likely just the tip of the iceberg for him, as Subban's still got about six or seven feet left before hitting his ceiling.

And finally, there's that dreaded coach. Surely everyone will credit Price for the victory, and will blame Jacques Martin for sitting on a 1-0 lead for most of the game. How dare he?

Except listen to a lot of the things the Bruins were saying after Game 1, and simply replace them with members of the Capitals or Penguins and you'll get an idea of how frustrating this team can be to play against. Like it or not, you can't ignore the fact that the team let go of the goalie that the coach supposedly rode to all that playoff success last season, and now another talented goalie has stepped in and we're seeing similar results.

I can go on and on here, because a lot of Canadiens deserve credit for this win, including Andrei Kostitsyn who showed a ton of heart after taking a Zdeno Chara slapshot that may very well have broken his foot, or Tomas Plekanec who was a penalty killing beast and led the team with five shots on goal, or Ryan White who was credited with a game-high seven hits in just over seven minutes of ice time.

How do Bruins respond?

But let's look at the other side of the ledger.

How much poise did Tomas Kaberle show by blindly clearing that puck around the boards early on, and then leaving Gionta wide open for the game's opening goal just 2:44 in?

What was Milan Lucic thinking when he tried to dangle around Gomez in his own end, then totally stopped playing after the predictable turnover took place?

How did Tim Thomas let that second goal by Gionta get through him at a stage in the game when allowing a goal was totally deflating to a group that was surely starting to question whether they would get one by Price, but who now had to get two?

And how does Chara once again lose his temper and go to town on Plekanec to take an obvious roughing penalty with just 2:48 to play, eliminating the slight chance the team he captains had of coming back in the game.

The Bruins showed a lot of good things in the game, but those good things didn't lead to good results.

More than anything the Canadiens did in this game, this may be the most important factor moving toward Game 2, and especially as the series moves back to Montreal: Can the Bruins embrace the good while shutting out the bad?

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