I spent the better part of the day Sunday at Canadiens practice hounding the players about whether or not they could create the desperation they said led to them winning the first two games in Boston, but which would not be naturally on their side with such a commanding series lead going into Game 3.

The Bruins would be arriving in Montreal knowing full well they had no choice but to win, while the Canadiens – no matter what they were saying to the contrary – simply did not have that same degree of urgency.

That would have to come internally by convincing themselves that a game that clearly wasn't a must-win was one.

But the brain is difficult to fool sometimes, and that was quite obviously the case for the Canadiens because they didn't start playing until the situation called for that urgency they all said they needed from the opening faceoff, but which ultimately didn't come until the game was half over.

"We just didn't compete for the first 30 minutes of the game," said Canadiens coach Jacques Martin when asked if the atmosphere in the building may have distracted his players, as Hal Gill had suggested a few minutes earlier.

It was a refrain Martin would repeat once more in his post-game press conference, and one that was echoed by his best player who said the laissez-faire attitude of the Canadiens was palpable as early as the morning skate.

"I think it started this morning, guys were horsing around during the morning skate and weren't ready to play so I think we got what we deserved in the first period," said Carey Price, clearly unimpressed. "After that I felt we came back and played like a focused hockey team, like we should."

The lack of focus was evident on the Canadiens first power play, coming as a result of Zdeno Chara jumping on the ice for his first shift since the infamous game of March 8 while Andrew Ference didn't jump off.

That was 1:08 into the game, and the sense of anticipation in an already cranked building was evident because if the Canadiens could score on this power play it would allow them to repeat the formula they used to such success in the first two games.

But instead, the power play looked disorganized and – not to belabour the same point over and over – without any of that urgency the situation called for.

The result was a single, harmless shot on goal from Scott Gomez and, three seconds after the power play expired, a goal by David Krejci that gave Boston its first lead of the series and sucked a good deal of life out of the building.

"It's a balance of being intense and being in control," Hal Gill said of the start to the game and managing the atmosphere. "You try and control your intensity, but sometimes you control it too much. I think we could have been a little more intense and used that rather than trying to find that balance. Maybe we were on the wrong side of that balance."

They were indeed on the wrong side of it, but really, the game's outcome was somewhat predictable. The Bruins, as Martin said after the morning skate, were not simply going to fold after the season they had raised the expectations for playoff success that are burdening every single player and, most of all, the coach.

And while Price was upset over the way his team was too loose, he also fell victim to that same affliction when he turned the puck over behind his own net, giving Rich Peverley a gift for his first career playoff goal, one that ultimately turned out to be the game-winner. Meanwhile, Benoit Pouliot may have finally booked his ticket to the press box by taking a brain dead charging penalty at the end of the first period, playing just two second period shifts and none in the third.

When asked if Pouliot got hurt in the fight that ensued from his hit or if he simply had no room for him in his lineup, Martin replied, "No, he wasn't hurt."

The Canadiens did crank it up eventually, particularly after Andrei Kostitsyn's inside out move on Chara resulted in a weak goal on Thomas and got them to within two goals with more than half the game ahead of them.

And whatever happened in the Canadiens dressing room after the second period must have been some inspiring stuff, because they came out determined and played their most dominant 20 minutes of the series.

Except, as Claude Julien noted, that is also the result of one team having a deficit to make up and another team having a lead to protect.

"When they took the lead in our building they just sat back, and we outshot them and outchanced them but they seemed to get a lot of credit for winning those games," he said. "I don't know if I'll take credit away from our hockey club for hanging in there and winning the hockey game."

So now both teams have two days to think about their current situation, with the Bruins shuttling off to the home of the Miracle on Ice while the Canadiens benefit from a total day off on Tuesday before getting back to practice on Wednesday.

While the Canadiens are surely disappointed with Monday night's loss, there is a benefit in that manufacturing the urgency they were unable to create in Game 3 will be a little bit easier to conjure for Game 4, knowing another loss brings everything back to square one and shifts the momentum clearly in Boston's favour.

The Bruins are still the desperate team because they're still facing a daunting 3-1 series deficit, but the Canadiens should be able to at least fake it right from the morning skate Thursday.