MONTREAL -- It's been a quarter-century since hockey's most fabled franchise raised its record 24th Stanley Cup banner to the roof, riding a babyfaced Patrick Roy to glory in 1993, and yet the NHL still has no grander stage.
So when these Canadiens' surprising bid for a playoff spot this spring seemed to strengthen over the past week, yeah, the citizenry was going to get a little wound up. The bleu, blanc et rouge was out in full force Friday night at sports bars across Centre-Ville, cheering on the CH to victory over the Rangers down in New York. And it only multiplied all day Saturday as their team returned home for a date with the NHL's marquee name and a collective opponent they might need to push out of the Eastern picture.
A year ago, a cab driver here caustically told me, "You'll never see hockey fans more passionate than here in Montreal. Except when we're mad."
That was then, when they missed the playoffs for the second time in three years. But this was now. And the buzz around here strongly suggested that now was expected to be different.
Until it wasn't.
Meaning, oh, about nine minutes into the Penguins' eventual 5-1 final Saturday night at Bell Centre.
Price and the Canadiens conceded three goals on the visitors' first four shots -- their only shots of the entire period, actually -- and the couple of modest surges they'd mount after that were muted by a rebounding Matt Murray. And by the closing 20 minutes, the Penguins went about closing up shop.
"Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a hole there at the beginning," Claude Julien, the coach, complained afterward. "I thought that we played with energy. We pushed hard in the second, but couldn't find the back of the net often enough. Pittsburgh played a good third, and didn't give up a lot of chances."
"You're putting yourself behind the eight-ball when you get down 3-0," Brendan Gallagher said. "We did have a push. We had some breakaways, we hit some posts … if just one of those go in, maybe you get some momentum going, and maybe they tighten up a little bit."
Ifs, ifs and ifs don't amount to much this time of the winter. Ask the Penguins about all their recent ifs in Philadelphia and Buffalo.
Price had been set up to be the hero on this stage. He was getting rare back-to-back starts -- the Canadiens handle him with care after a career wracked by injury -- and he was a victory shy of overtaking the legendary Jacques Plante for the franchise record.
I asked Julien before the game about his decision to go with Price:
No one faulted Price afterward -- and he wasn't around to answer questions -- but the result was the result. And it might have been one that makes the Canadiens the odd men out.
For the most part, all concerned simply credited the Penguins, particularly their stars. Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel had four points each, and Evgeni Malkin had a goal.
“We were playing a good team,” Gallagher said. “You look at who scored the goals tonight: Crosby, Malkin, Guentzel ... they’re pretty good goal-scorers and, when the puck’s on their sticks and you give them the opportunity, it’s pretty hard to stop them.”
The standings showed this status between these teams afterward: The Penguins are 34-22-9 for 77 points, holding the East's first wild-card spot. The Canadiens are 35-24-7, also for 77 points, holding the East's second and final wild-card spot. The Penguins have a game in hand.
At the same time, the Hurricanes have 78 points, the Blue Jackets 75, and only the latter is currently out of the playoff picture. So it's looking like it's these four teams vying for three spots with a little more than a month to go.
So, why would Montreal be likeliest to exit?
Well, in addition to the fact that Marc Bergevin basically wallpapered this roster into being far more competitive than anyone could've expected, Price can't be shoved into the crease night after night, as this game might have shown. And if he isn't, Antti Niemi will be, and that's ... not good. Also, and maybe more troubling from this perspective, the Canadiens just got back from a four-game trip -- seriously, in the wee hours of Saturday morning -- and now fly way out west to play all three California teams in a four-day span.
They already seemed to be dreading that right after this one.
"We have to take the positives out of this one," Shea Weber said. "We're going back on the road here, all the way out west, and we'll play some teams where we need to get points. We'll keep playing overall like we did, obviously minus a few things."
