Montreal Canadiens clobber Boston Bruins, 3-1: NHL Play-off Recap
Mathieu Darche and Yannick Weber both lit the lamp to lift the Montreal Canadiens to a 3-1 victory over the Boston Bruins in Game 2 of Eastern Conference quarter-final matchup, at the TD Garden on Saturday night.
Mike Cammalleri also hit the net and had one assist for Montreal, which has won two consecutive contests on the road to start the playoffs and is looking for a stranglehold on the series in Game 3, at Bell Centre on Monday. Carey Price played outstandingly
and just came up short for the shut out, turning away 34-of-35 shots.
"We've made it hard on ourselves," Montreal forward Mark Recchi said. "But we'll give Montreal some credit and go in their building and try to do what they did to us."
Patrice Bergeron supplied the lone offence for Boston, which has lost six consecutive post-season contests and halted a postseason goalless streak dating back to Game 4 of its conference semi-final series 2010 against the Philadelphia Flyers. Tim Thomas
was beaten for all three goals on 26 shots in the losing effort.
The Canadiens got on the board first just 43 seconds into the opening period. The goal came when defenseman Johnny Boychuk turned the puck over right outside the blue line and James Wisniewski ripped a right point shot that was saved, but Cammalleri
jammed the rebound into the net.
Montreal took a two-goal edge, 2-0, about 1 ½ minute later with six seconds left in a power play. The goal was set up by Cammalleri, who intercepted a weak clearing effort by Boston’s defenseman Andrew Ference behind the net and passed it in front,
where Darche fired a successful one-timer into the net for his first career play-off goal.
Boston finally got on the board to cut the deficit in half, 2-1, just 7:38 into the opening period. The goal came when Recchi skated with the puck over the blue line and passed it over to Marchand, who threw it into the middle where Bergeron deflected
it past Price, who had skated out to cut down the angle. It was Boston’s first goal of the series.
However, Weber restored Montreal’s two-goal edge, 3-1, with 2 ½ minutes remaining in the second period. It started when Lars Eller’s shot on net was saved by goalie, but Weber followed up the rebound and backhanded it home.
"It's not over. We have more hockey to play," said Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban about his team sweeping a pair from its permanent rivals. "All business."
Boston built up pressure on the Canadiens in the final session, outshooting Montreal by an 11-3 margin. Nonetheless, Bruins were unable to take advantage on its lone power-play opportunity early on, and then pulled Thomas for an extra attacker in the
last minute, but could not generate chances to creep within another goal.
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