MONTREAL — It all comes down to a nervy Game 7 for the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins.
After wasting two chances to put away the plucky Bruins, the Canadiens will take heart in at least being on home ice for the deciding game of the best-of-seven NHL Eastern Conference playoff series.
The Bruins and Canadiens will square off Monday night (CBC, 7 p.m.) before 21,273 increasingly anxious fans to break the series 3-3 deadlock and determine which team will advance to the second round.
The Bruins tied it with a wild 5-4 win on Saturday night in Boston in which Montreal let three one-goal leads slip away, two nights after the Bruins bested the Canadiens 5-1 in Game 5 at the Bell Centre.
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The top-seeded Canadiens entered the series as the heavy favourites over the eighth-seeded Bruins and looked to be in control after taking a 3-1 series lead.
Now they will play the Bruins in a Game 7 for the seventh time in history, which the NHL says is the most two clubs will have ever played against one another in a major North American sports league.
Montreal has won four and lost two Game 7s against Boston, most recently a 2-0 win in 2004 when the Canadiens came back from a 3-1 deficit under head coach Claude Julien, who is now the Bruins' coach.
Interest in the series, particularly in Quebec, is sky-high with Montreal icing its most talented team in 15 years. It has drawn record television audiences peaking at over two million for French-language broadcaster RDS, which has even edged out the CBC ratings.
Fans around the city have packed into bars and restaurants decked out in Montreal's red, white and blue colours to watch the series, and thousands have massed in the streets and parking lots around the Bell Centre before games.
For them, it will be heartbreak or euphoria when Game 7 ends.
Here are some Game 7 statistics released Sunday by the NHL:
— NHL teams have trailed 3-1 in a best-of-seven series 224 times and have come back to win the series 20 times, or nine per cent of the time.
— Since the NHL introduced the best-of-seven format in 1939, the home team has won 76 of the 120 playoff series that have gone to seven games, or 63%.
— Twenty-nine of the 120 Game 7s have been decided in overtime. The last saw the Calgary Flames defeat the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 on a goal by Martin Gelinas at 1:25 to claim the Western Conference quarter-final on April 19, 2004.
— Home teams have posted a 15-14 record in the 29 overtime games, although road clubs are 10-4 since 1990.
— Montreal is 10-8 all-time in Game 7s, while Boston is 9-7.
The player with the most Game 7 experience in Monday night's contest will be Montreal centre Bryan Smolinski, although his teams' record in those games is 2-5. Alex Kovalev's teams won all five Game 7s he played in.
Boston's Glen Murray has seen five Game 7s and is 2-3, while defenceman Andrew Ference is 2-2.
The only goaltender on either side to experience a Game 7 is Boston back-up Alex Auld, who is 0-1.
