No matter whether or not you took the Canadiens or the Bruins to win this first round series, there is absolutely no one who could have believed Montreal would walk into that Boston hornet's nest and come home with a 2-0 lead.
Even the Canadiens were dishing out the favoured underdog line of simply wanting to get the road split to make it a successful trip.
Except now, for the first time, this Canadiens group has a commanding lead in a playoff series, and I'm curious to see how they react.
Though they took Game 1 in Washington last year, ever since then they have remained perfectly comfortable in the underdog role, and have done nothing to emerge from it until winning back-to-back Game 7s on the road.
Now, quite suddenly and some would say shockingly, the Canadiens are the team in charge with absolutely no need to play desperate hockey to survive. Except, unless they play that way back home in Montreal, they run the risk of allowing a Bruins team that is in some stage far beyond desperation to come back in the series.
I don't want to call Game 3 back here a must-win game, because it clearly isn't. But if I were Jacques Martin, that's how I would be selling it to my players.
But Martin's sell on that front should not be overly difficult. His own team erased a two-game deficit against Washington last season, and the Bruins blew and even more comfortable 3-0 lead in the second round to the Flyers.
That's all he needs to emphasize to his troops, because in terms of tactics and execution it doesn't get a whole lot better for the Canadiens than what we've seen thus far.
But what we've seen has not included a single second where the Canadiens have trailed in a game, and we all know how differently this team plays under those circumstances. As much as it felt like it was over as soon as the Canadiens went up 1-0 very early in both Games 1 and 2, I'm curious to see how the team would react if the shoe is on the other foot in Game 3.
However, that's truly nitpicking, because right now the Canadiens are riding their tried-and-true strategy from last season's playoffs to even more success, the main difference being this time around that there's no one on that team that needs to be convinced it works. Sit on a one-goal lead with 59 minutes left to play? Of course we will, even though it goes against every ounce of hockey instinct each of those players have.
A quick rundown of the cumulative stats in the series would not paint a clear picture of the completely demoralizing journey the Bruins will take to Montreal on Sunday. After two games, it looks like so:
Boston Montreal
Shots on goal: 66 46
Shot attempts: 132 81
Hits: 64 55
Giveaways: 21 6
Takeaways: 8 16
Blocked shots: 21 46
Goals: 1 5
But, if Guy Carbonneau were coaching the Bruins, he would surely be saying that his best players need to be his best players, because they haven't been for Claude Julien. P.K. Subban and Hal Gill have had a huge role in completely neutralizing David Krejci, Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton, as has Tomas Plekanec and whoever his linemates happen to be, but the Bruins simply can't win if they continue to be this bad moving forward. Here are their cumulative stats after two games, taking for granted that everyone knows none of them have any points:
Milan Lucic
40:29 TOI, 4 shots on goal, 9 shot attempts, 6 hits, 4 giveaways, minus-2
Nathan Horton
35:12 TOI, 3 shots on goal, 6 shot attempts, 4 hits, 3 giveaways, minus-2
David Krejci
40:58 TOI, 2 shots on goal, 7 shot attempts, 0 hits, 0 giveaways, minus-2
Now, look at the numbers for Lars Eller and Tom Pyatt, keeping in mind the disparity in ice time, and also that many of their minutes in Game 1 at least were spent playing against the Krejci line.
Lars Eller
23:33 TOI, 1 assist, 3 shots on goal, six shot attempts, 6 hits, 0 giveaways, plus-1
Tom Pyatt
24:43 TOI, 2 shots on goal, 5 shot attempts, 1 hit, 0 giveaways, plus-1
With roughly half the ice time of Boston's big three, these two unheralded players are keeping up with them in most categories, and Eller even has more points than all three combined. While it's a great credit to how these to have played together after barely playing together all season, it's an even greater indictment of how Lucic, Horton and Krejci have done for the Bruins.
Read Brian Wilde's blog Habs Fever: Experience trumps all
