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MONTREAL — All eyes will be focused on rookie Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price and how he deals with the pressure cooker of a game seven in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Price has been coddled by the Canadiens since he gave up five more goals in Montreal's wild 5-4 loss to the Boston Bruins in game six on Saturday evening. He wasn't made available for interviews yesterday and again this morning after the Canadiens skate.
Did this maneuvre to shield him only add to the anxiety he's already experiencing in the hours leading up to tonight's elimination game?
"Carey has to be Carey Price and go out there and perform like he can and have fun," said Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau, also a rookie as he coaches his first game seven in the NHL playoffs.
Boston Bruins celebrate a goal by Phil Kessel as Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price skates by in the third period of Game 6 of their NHL Eastern Conference quarter-final hockey game in Boston on Saturday. (Adam Hunger/Reuters)
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Price was solid in the first four games of the series, stopping 115 of 120 shots. But now he has allowed 10 goals in his past two games. He could not be faulted in the last game, but he didn't exactly redeem himself after a horrible game five.
"I don't think he's had a bad game," Montreal forward Tom Kostopoulos said. "We've let him down."
The Candiens hope to celebrate their first playoff series victory since 2004, when Montreal overcame a 3-1 deficit in games to take the sequence in seven games. There are so many similarities from that series to the way this one has shaped up.
Of course, Claude Julien was the coach of that Canadiens team and now he is trying to pull of the same feat with the Bruins. But the Canadiens won that series because then Bruins rookie goalie Andrew Raycroft was brilliant at the beginning, but like his teammates couldn't sustain that level in the end.
Raycroft, the 2003-04 Calder Trophy winner, roared out of the starting gate with a shutout, an overtime victory and only seven goals against in the first four games. Price also enjoyed the spoils of a shutout and an overtime win in the first four games.
Raycroft surrendered 12 goals in the final three games in the 2004 series, including five apiece in games five and six, just like Price.
Price certainly has more experience to draw upon than Raycroft had four years ago. Price has was stupendous in Canada's win at the 2007 world junior championship and was the victor in the Hamilton Bulldogs' Calder Cup win last spring.
But a scout has noticed that Price, 20, has been back in his goal, a sign that he is struggling.
To deal with their current struggles, the Canadiens have attempted to erase the past two games from their memory banks and concentrate on returning to the game that was so efficient in the first four games of the series.
They have spent the last day-and-a-half reflecting on what went wrong and vowing to get back to basics. Some veteran players, who have experienced a seventh and deciding game, also relayed their encounters to the younger players.
"The one I was in went really fine," said Montreal forward Mathieu Dandenault, who won three Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings. "We won 7-0 [against the Colorado Avalanche] to go into the Stanley Cup final."
On the Bruins side, they believe that if they were able to stave off elimination twice, why not a third time.
"Mental toughness is certainly the key tonight," Julien said. "We play tonight to live another day.
"Edge, momentum, it's all something that doesn't come into play. It's game seven, flip a coin. Both teams are playing for their lives."
Unless there is an eleventh hour medical clearance, injured centre Patrice Bergeron, who has been out almost six months with a concussion, won't play.
