Habs vs Rangers : Party time isn't over in Montreal as Habs force Game 6 #habs #hockey #rangers #playoffs

source : Faceoff.com

It grew progressively more chaotic the closer you got to the Bell Centre, with a street party thriving through sporadic bursts of rain. There was a tent with a mechanical bull, a tent with beer and a tent giving free Montreal Canadiens tattoos — the holy trinity for anyone looking for a wild night.

It was end of days. The Canadiens were facing elimination. It might as well be a party, be a bit of fun in the face of the end. And that is exactly what happened.

Rene Bourque scored three goals for the first playoff hat-trick of his career, delivering the host team to a 7-4 win over the New York Rangers in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final. In short, he helped to save their season.

Montreal will travel back to Manhattan for Game 6 on Thursday, with a chance to tie the series and send it back one more time for a Game 7 at home on Saturday. That would possibly be one of the most electric evenings in recent hockey history.

Nothing has been assured in this series, of course, and there is no reason to think that will begin now. Rangers centre Derek Stepan was another example of the unexpected, scoring twice in defeat in his first game back after undergoing surgery to repair a broken jaw.

The animosity between the teams continued building. Rangers defenceman John Moore was ejected for a head hit on Canadiens winger Dale Weise midway through the third period. Weise was wobbly, caught by defenceman P.K. Subban.

“John is definitely not the type of player to try to hurt someone,” said Rangers coach Alain Vigneault, “but it was a late hit and it was the right call on the ice.”

The crowd was livid.

It was hard to overstate the feeling of importance attached to the game in Montreal, a city where every second car seemed to have a Canadiens flag flapping from a side window. It was not just the cars, either: Banners hung in store windows, from the back of fire trucks, and one stood three storeys high on the top of a downtown construction project.

A church on the east side of town posted a notice on its front door. It invited anyone who wanted to listen to the game to do so from the comfort of the church. Doors were to open at 7 p.m., one hour before the puck dropped at the city’s primary venue of worship.

In following that vein, the day had begun with talk of a saviour. Carey Price appeared in full pads on the ice at the team’s suburban practice facility early Tuesday morning, with two members of the team’s staff watching closely.

He had not played since the series opener and, despite early speculation, he was not able to play in
the elimination game. As coach Michel Therrien said, it was only part of what the doctors had prescribed in his rehabilitation, and not a miracle come to life.

That left the burden squarely on the shoulders of Dustin Tokarski, the 24-year-old rookie who has been in net since Game 2. He stole Game 3 in New York, and nearly did it again in Game 4, before Martin St. Louis fired a perfect shot past him in overtime.

On Tuesday, the Canadiens did their best to relieve some of that burden. Montreal skaters fired up ice to start the first period. Alex Galchenyuk, who hit a crossbar late in the third period of Game 4, deflected a Subban shot to give Montreal the 1-0 lead.

The Canadiens carried a 2-1 lead into first intermission. They built it all the way up to 4-1 in the second period, on a cruise back to Manhattan for Game 6. Montreal chased Henrik Lundqvist from the net after Tomas Plekanec, Max Pacioretty and Bourque scored.

“You know what? Rene Bourque played a great game,” Canadiens coach Michel Therrien said. “On the forecheck, he took the man. He was moving his feet … he’s a very good scorer, so definitely that was a great performance by him.”

Montreal was doing everything its players had pledged they would do; creating traffic in front of the net, clearing the zone when necessary and staying on the attack. It worked in the second round, they said, when the Canadiens fought off a pair of elimination games to oust the Boston Bruins in seven games.

“We’ve been there, two weeks ago,” Therrien had said. “And it’s about preparation. It’s about attitude.”

They had it and then they found some more.

And then, in a span of less than five minutes of the second period, they lost it. Rick Nash was credited with a goal when the puck deflected off Canadiens defenceman Josh Gorges and past Tokarski. They kept pushing, with Stepan scoring his second of the game before Chris Kreider — the series villain who knocked Price out in Game 1 — scored to tie it.

 Bourque stopped the backward flow with five to play in the second. And his third gave a renewed sense of belief seven minutes into the third period. Hats rained down to the ice, the crowd rediscovered its full voice again.

It was bedlam. Chaos. It was a party, just as it was when the night began.