The Boston Bruins open the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs tonight by facing a familiar foe -- the Montreal Canadiens. The two teams have met on 31 previous occasions in the postseason, an NHL record. In 24 of those series, the Canadiens have gotten the better of the Bruins, and Boston has not beaten Montreal in a seven-game series since 1994.
Last year, the Bruins lost to the Canadiens in the first round; still, the series was something of a success for the B's. The Canadiens came in atop the Eastern Conference and swept the season series with the Bruins. Few pundits were expecting the offensively challenged Bruins to do much of anything against the Canadiens, and yet coach Claude Julien's team put up a good fight before finally going down in seven games.
The Bruins are hoping a change is coming. They finished the regular season with 116 points, tops in the Eastern Conference and one point behind the President's Trophy-winning San Jose Sharks. This year, they roughed up their Quebecois rivals, going 5-0-1 over the course of the season. In fact, the situation looks like a mirror image of last year's first-round matchup, but the Bruins aren't focusing on that.
Julien, for one, isn't putting stock in regular-season records. He has been on both sides of this rivalry, leading the 2004 Canadiens to a seven-game upset of the Bruins. Last season, his Bruins took a heavily favored Canadiens team to the brink of elimination, so his attitude is hardly surprising.
"I think you just have to look at last year," Julien said. "Once the puck is dropped in the playoffs, it doesn't really make a difference. Once playoffs start, everyone has the same record, and it's zero across the board. You've got to look at it as a new season and a new challenge."
Despite maintaining a spot at the top of the conference for months, the Canadiens consider themselves lucky to be in the postseason. Montreal is limping into the playoffs on a four-loss streak. Its power-play quarterback, Mathieu Schneider, will require shoulder surgery in the offseason, but he is gamely staying in the lineup. Frontline defenseman Andrei Markov, arguably the Canadiens' best player, is doubtful for the opening of the series due to an injury suffered a few weeks ago against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sergei Kostitsyn, Andrei Kostitsyn and Roman Hamrlik were connected to a Montreal underworld figure that was arrested in late February. And goaltending has been a struggle; both Carey Price and Jaroslav Halak have had difficulties down the stretch.
"We had some adversities," Canadiens captain Saku Koivu said. "We had some tough times throughout the season, and it hasn't been an easy one. The way we have been playing and [have] handled everything that has gone on off the ice that has happened in the last month, I am really proud of our team."
But the Canadiens proved their mettle on April 9 in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Bruins. The Bruins had a comfortable 3-1 lead midway through the second period, but they soon got into penalty trouble, allowing Schneider and his boys to go to work. The Habs scored four goals, three on the power play, in the second period to take the lead.
"You see that when we do lose our cool, and we let our emotions get the best of us, they score three unanswered there," Bruins forward Milan Lucic said.
In the game, Lucic was assessed a 10-minute misconduct for taking down Canadiens defenseman Mike Komisarek from behind, and the Bruins' weakness is right there -- penalties. Montreal is a quick skating team and can provoke the much tougher Bruins into taking stupid penalties. In last Thursday's game, the Bruins' team discipline broke down in a pair of line brawls and generally sloppy play. The Canadiens are not a particularly strong team, but they are capable enough to capitalize on any edge that the Bruins may care to hand them.
"We kind of played our game the whole time, but there's a part in the second period where we kind of got away from our game," Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron said. "We better stay a little more disciplined."
The Bruins are fortunate that the lesson came at the end of the regular season rather than during the first round. The Canadiens have seen a hint of weakness in the Bruins' otherwise formidable armor, and they will certainly try to exploit it.
"We know it's going to be hard-nosed hockey, and it's going to be in-your-face," Lucic said. "That style of hockey is what makes the playoffs worth watching."
