Game 3 between the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens is tonight at Bell Centre, marking the first time the Bruins will play in that building since the Zdeno Chara/Max Pacioretty incident.
Chara, should be play, will be booed lustily. So will the Bruins. For a team needing a victory in this 2-0 series like a Kardashian needs a magazine cover, the hosts couldn't be less hospitable.
That goes for the team across the ice, too. The Canadiens have given the Bruins fits in their arena this season.
The B's took a 4-3 loss to the Habs on Dec. 16, and in their second meeting in Montreal, they blew a 2-0 lead in the final 2:22 en route to taking an embarrassing 3-2 loss in overtime on Jan. 8. While the March 8 game in Bell Centre was ugly enough as a result of the Max Pacioretty/Zdeno Chara mess, the B's play in a 4-1 loss wasn't much prettier.
With the Habs winning all three games of their meetings at the Bell Centre, they could conceivably be licking their chops at the prospect of sweeping the B's in front of their home crowd. They're not thinking about it, but the Bruins are thinking about finding a way to turn into the team that grabbed 24 road wins.
So how do they pull it out in Game 3?
Score the first goal, obviously.
As we pointed out over the weekend, the Canadiens have made it a postseason tradition to open strong with a goal within the first 5 minutes of a game. The Bruins score first, and it helps them exert their own style of hockey on the Habs and at least brings the crowd down a few decibels.
Whether they break through first or not, the question is whether their kung-fu is stronger than that of Montreal. Eric Engels of CTV is trying to figure that out:
Those two games the Bruins won with brute force - which everyone placed the onus on in handicapping the Canadiens' chances before this started - are looking more and more like aberrations. And yet, if the Bruins are to look for some source of motivation, they'll still be caught scouring those game tapes for some degree of evidence that they had the Habs figured out.
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If the Bruins are going anywhere but down in this one, they'll need to do it with the same game-plan they've tried, but failed, to execute in the first two games. If they're to make this a series, it'll have to be on Tim Thomas' shoulders and on the performances of players like Lucic, Horton and Krejci, who have yet to punch their scorecards in the post-season. At this stage, all of that is far more questionable than the Canadiens' chances of finishing them off.
Plenty can happen in Game 3, but one thing's certain: The crowd is going to be insane. (And hopefully not in a lighty/burny way after the game.) As Annakin Slayd said in his lastest Habs anthem: