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May 6 Game#3 Montreal at Tampa Bay


DON

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Well desparate times for our favourite team!

Many have, with good reason, pretty much tossed in the towel and hold little hope to reach Semi-Finals; but what a sweet comeback it would be if can happen to pull it off.

:gohabsgo:

(again stolen from NHL.com preview)

CANADIENS at LIGHTNING

TV: CBC, USA, TVA Sports

Tampa Bay leads best-of-7 series 2-0

Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper is more concerned about their level of desperation rather than that of the Montreal Canadiens heading into Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Second Round at Amalie Arena on Wednesday.

Tampa Bay was 32-8-1 at home on its way to finishing in second place in the Atlantic Division during the regular season, two points behind Montreal.

"The mere fact that we're at home, regardless of what our regular-season record is, means nothing in Game 3 of the playoffs," Cooper said. "To us, the series is 0-0; we've got to treat it like that and understand that our desperation level has to exceed what Montreal's is."

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The Lightning won the first two games of the series at Bell Centre and have an opportunity to win their fifth game at home in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs; they split four games in their 4-3 series win against the Detroit Red Wings in the Eastern Conference First Round.

"It takes four games to win a series," Tampa Bay center Tyler Johnson said. "It doesn't matter if you win two or three, you have to win four. We have a good start, obviously, but really that's all that matters. There's still more games to be played and Montreal's a great team and we can't take our foot off the gas here."

Canadiens left wing Max Pacioretty is ready to draw on the positives and negatives he and his teammates learned from being in a similar 2-0 hole against the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final last year. Montreal won Game 3 at Madison Square Garden but lost the next game before losing the best-of-7 series in six games.

"We hope we can learn from that experience where we went down 2-0 in our building, and yeah, we made it a series, but we weren't able to come back and win the series at the end of the day," Pacioretty said. "We've got to remember that feeling and what it took to win Game 3, and what we didn't do right to win Game 4, and that experience all comes into play now when we're looking at this series as a whole. There's time to think about it [Tuesday] night, but once we wake up [Wednesday] morning it's all about worrying about that first shift and that first period and nothing else."

Defenseman P.K. Subban is confident the Canadiens can win Game 3.

"That's where our focus has got to be, and after that we'll worry about everything else, but there's no doubt in my mind if we come out with the right effort we're going to like the result we're going to get," Subban said.

The two previous playoff series between the teams ended in a sweep; Tampa Bay eliminated Montreal in 2004 on its way to winning the Stanley Cup, and the Canadiens swept the Lightning in the first round last year. Tampa Bay has won seven games in a row against Montreal since then, including five games during the 2014-15 regular season.

"The good thing is we're due, that's the way I look at it," Montreal coach Michel Therrien said.

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Not tossing in the towel. Knew all season that come play off time this teams weaknesses would be fully exposed.

From start of the year i and others have said this team is not a serious Stanley cup contender.

Rome was not built in a day (and apparently a powerplay can take even longer than Rome did. ) ha!

GO CAREY

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Some positives:

They only need one win to make it "a series."

Two days off did wonders for Ottawa. Montreal is a better team than Ottawa.

Price will steal at least one game. Odds are that Bishop has played his best hockey. DGB remarked something to the effect of "he has a good week than a bad week."

The Habs are shooting 2%. Their PP is at 3.8%. They're not THIS bad on offense. These percentages are going to turn around eventually.

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yes the habs went into scoring slumps in the reg season, Carey bailed then out with a few stolen wins in the drought and they would eventually pull out of them for a spell. Then they would go into another one. Plays offs is a different animal in many ways. One is their is little time to pull out of a scoring slump. In the last five game they have been out scored 15-5.

and Stampkos woke up. Damn.

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Law of averages..we had 110 pts for blanks sakes..surely it'll turn around :pray:

Therrien just loves pointing to the 110 pt. reg season too.

Season before the Aves finished first in the west.

Reg season means nothing in May.

it better not, we got 1 of those 110 pts against tbay.

:thumbs_up: go down swinging, like the sens did.

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Therrien just loves pointing to the 110 pt. reg season too.

Season before the Aves finished first in the west.

Reg season means nothing in May.

it better not, we got 1 of those 110 pts against tbay.

:thumbs_up: go down swinging, like the sens did.

Why wouldn't he? It looks about as good on his resume as the 100 point season before it. The year before that, the Habs were on pace for over 100. Colorado had one hot year bookended with playoff misses.

I talked with one of my work buddies about the Rangers, he's shit scared of Tampa. Most of the league's teams would be.

Give the Lightning some credit. The Tampa Bay Lightning are winning the series. Michel Therrien is not losing the series. The power play is not losing the series. Tomas Plekanex and David Desharnais are not losing the series. As a team, to a man, they are being beaten soundly by Tampa. Hockey is a team game. If it were as easy to fix a PP, fire a coach, or get a player each team would be a Cup favorite every year.

If the regular season means nothing in May, why have there been no major upsets? Wouldn't the mythical teams from the land of number one centers and red hot power plays be wreaking havoc on the league's perceptions while putting Vegas out of business?

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The thing about the power play in that context is that the team that everyone should supposedly fear was in a worse scoring drout on it than us prior to last game. Either their power play sucks as well or all we need is one solid game to have a good power play as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not holding my breath but I'm sure their fan base felt the same way as us as well for a few of their recent games. I don't think Tampa's power play sucks but I also don't think it's the reason that they should be revered.

I wouldn't even personally accept the argument that it was only a matter of time for them based on the looks they had over their 0/25ish drout because I think we've had some good looks during some of ours as well in between the terribleness. Here's to hoping we can score on at least one on Wednesday with the extra man. Although I get the feeling that there won't be many opportunities tomorrow for some reason.

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Why wouldn't he? It looks about as good on his resume as the 100 point season before it. The year before that, the Habs were on pace for over 100. Colorado had one hot year bookended with playoff misses.

I talked with one of my work buddies about the Rangers, he's shit scared of Tampa. Most of the league's teams would be.

Give the Lightning some credit. The Tampa Bay Lightning are winning the series. Michel Therrien is not losing the series. The power play is not losing the series. Tomas Plekanex and David Desharnais are not losing the series. As a team, to a man, they are being beaten soundly by Tampa. Hockey is a team game. If it were as easy to fix a PP, fire a coach, or get a player each team would be a Cup favorite every year.

If the regular season means nothing in May, why have there been no major upsets? Wouldn't the mythical teams from the land of number one centers and red hot power plays be wreaking havoc on the league's perceptions while putting Vegas out of business?

I have gave the lightning some credit. Said the same thing about them (and the rangers) as your "work buddy" before the reg season even ended.

Yes they are being beaten soundly by tampa, you may have needed your work buddy to tell you that, i did not. I picked the lightning to win in 5 games after all. I gave them the credit they deserve before this series started.

You are right. DD and Pleks are not losing the series , they are just incapable of winning it. The lightning are a better, deeper, team. You maybe surprised by that. Yor work buddy and many others including myself are not.

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I have gave the lightning some credit. Said the same thing about them (and the rangers) as your "work buddy" before the reg season even ended.

Yes they are being beaten soundly by tampa, you may have needed your work buddy to tell you that, i did not. I picked the lightning to win in 5 games after all. I gave them the credit they deserve before this series started.

You are right. DD and Pleks are not losing the series , they are just incapable of winning it. The lightning are a better, deeper, team. You maybe surprised by that. Yor work buddy and many others including myself are not.

Oh...one more thing. The Avalanche weren't first in the West that year, but I figured I would be generous after throwing five haymakers to the chin of your flaccid argument.

This is just the typical crap I hear from people my father's age. (Not sure how old you are) The "real" Habs fans of the past are little more than spoiled front runners who can't appreciate a team unless they are the odds on favorite who win the Cup in less than 20 playoff games.

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I didn't wear my Habs sweater for games one and two. It's all my fault.

I didn't post Yvonne. Not all on you.

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In terms of Tampa being the better team: we outchanced them by a significant margin in Game One and picked up right where we left off until Stamkos's goal broke our backs. This is the simple fact that the whole narrative of 'Habs mediocrity/Tampa awesomeness,' which is of course now unanimously agreed upon by all the authorities, overlooks.

The problem is, we failed to capitalize on those chances and thus left the door wide open for a massive momentum shift. And now we're in a pit.

The Habs, collectively, are not nearly as bad as they look after Game Two. Nor is Tampa as self-evidently superior as they seem after Game Two.

I would submit, therefore, that the power play IS in fact what has cost us the series. A single PP goal could have won Game One, and/or prevented the momentum swing that turned Game Two into a debacle. It wasn't really the Subban penalty that did us in in Game Two. It was our inability to score on the PP we got early in the second period.

All of that said, the team does have a structural problem in that, no matter how well it plays, it struggles to finish - to put the puck in the net - against strong goaltending. That both Craig Anderson and Ben Bishop - and Henrik Lundqvist, going back to last year - have overwhelmed our shooters is telling. The only top-flight goalie this team beats with reliability is Tukka Rask. We will never reach the Finals unless we can start beating top-flight goalies with some consistency.

It really does seem to be, not a problem of getting chances, but a problem of lacking finishers. Galchenyuk should have been that guy, but hasn't been. It's frustrating.

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DD is skating with with the team, so first of all-PHEW! Second, that means someone is coming out of the lineup. Am I the only person who thinks Brian Flynn should be playing instead of Jacob de la Rose? What is DLR bringing to the table besides being on an awful PK?

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DD is skating with with the team, so first of all-PHEW! Second, that means someone is coming out of the lineup. Am I the only person who thinks Brian Flynn should be playing instead of Jacob de la Rose? What is DLR bringing to the table besides being on an awful PK?

I'm glad De La Rose is garnering 'experience rich' minutes, which will help his development. Clearly Therrien really believes in the kid. But I also agree that he has not looked as good as Flynn. I'm with you.

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We've also been "unlucky" in game 2 in a certain way where the best chances we got were gotten from Flynn and Mitchell instead of, let's say, Pacioretty or Gally.

As long as our best forwards will not create the best chances, the goals won't come. They gotta find a way.

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Guest Stogey24

I'm glad De La Rose is garnering 'experience rich' minutes, which will help his development. Clearly Therrien really believes in the kid. But I also agree that he has not looked as good as Flynn. I'm with you.

Great hockey sense. Just isn't a finisher.
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I'm glad De La Rose is garnering 'experience rich' minutes, which will help his development. Clearly Therrien really believes in the kid. But I also agree that he has not looked as good as Flynn. I'm with you.

DLR is a great player, but how much muck can the muckers muck if the mucker could muck muck?

How does Galchekyuk feel with all these young guns of Tampa lighting it up? (No, I'm not saying he's mad at Therrien)

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I didn't wear my Habs sweater for games one and two. It's all my fault.

I have to take the blame for it. I haven't been wearing my jersey all playoffs (except for when I was at game 6 vs Ottawa), and for some reason I put it on to start the second period in game two. And then the onslaught began.....My apologies guys, it won't happen again.

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Key to winning tonight, very simple. Put the @&^% puck in the @*^ net and not into the beached whale in front of the @*^ net!

Score early, score often and score short handed. Then the series has changed direction.

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