source : faceoff.com
Max Pacioretty was sitting with his hands on his thighs in a quiet corner of a quiet dressing room. Discarded balls of hockey tape were on both sides of where he sat, a used white towel was crumpled on a seat nearby, speckled with someone’s blood.
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “You want to do so much, but there’s only so much you can do.”
The Montreal Canadiens had done more than many expected just by making the playoffs — the only Canadian NHL team to do so — then by sweeping through the first round, by emerging from a grudge match with their hated rivals and by threatening to climb from a 3-1 series deficit in the Eastern Conference final. On Thursday night, though, they could do no more.
They seemed disjointed and oddly flat in a 1-0 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, eliminated from the conference final in six games. The Rangers advanced to their first Stanley Cup final in 20 years on the 20th anniversary of their last NHL title.
Meanwhile, the streets in every Canadian NHL city will endure their 21st consecutive summer without a Stanley Cup parade. Several have come close, tiptoeing to within a few games, but none have won it since the Canadiens won their last, in 1993.
“It hurts,” said Canadiens coach Michel Therrien. “And it hurts more when you’re close.”
Montreal passes were off by feet and not inches in the first period, during the rare trips to the offensive zone. Brendan Gallagher, the 22-year-old winger who helped the team to get to Game 6, was sending passes into empty space. Even by the middle of the second period of a still-scoreless game, it felt like the team was hanging off the edge of a cliff.
The Canadiens opened the playoffs with an unexpectedly easy romp past the Tampa Bay Lightning, aided by the fact the Bolts had lost starting goaltender Ben Bishop to an injury. Montreal then battled the Boston Bruins for seven games, escaping elimination twice and winning Game 7 in enemy territory.
Their fortunes changed in the conference final. Montreal lost starting goaltender Carey Price to injury in the opener. And from his stall late Friday night, Pacioretty suggested beating the Bruins had an effect that lingered: “Maybe you feel a little bit too good about yourself.”
Montreal lost the first two at home to New York. And it never caught up.
The Rangers were in command from the opening shift on Friday. Derek Stepan hit a post behind Dustin Tokarski near the end of a power play. Tokarski was the last fingernail hanging onto the cliff, the last reason the Canadiens still had hope.
They came close with five minutes to play in the second period. Michael Bournival and Thomas Vanek had a two-on-one, with Rangers defenceman Dan Girardi desperately in pursuit. Girardi dove and he appeared to tip the puck toward the net.
Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist had been pulled two nights earlier. He allowed four goals in a 7-4 loss in Game 5 and his mental status was a talking point before the game. With the game still in doubt in Game 6, though, Lundqvist whipped his blocker around like a flyswatter to knock the puck away. It took multiple replay viewings to appreciate what he had just done.
“We played so well the entire game,” Lundqvist said, “for me it was more about just being focused on the few shots they had and in the second period.”
And what he did was allow the Rangers to take a 1-0 lead into the third period. The dam finally broke with two minutes to play before intermission. The Rangers were working on the boards and working quickly. A pass from Ryan McDonagh whipped around the end boards to Brian Boyle, who fired quickly to Dominic Moore, in the slot.
Moore scored.
The Canadiens sputtered in response. They were still being out-shot two-to-one near the end of the third period. Brandon Prust, in his first game back from a two-game suspension for a dangerous hit, took a late slashing minor. The time melted away quickly.
“
We didn’t put forth a great defensive effort the game before,” McDonagh said. “It’s tough to win when you give them a lot of looks like that.”
As the arena emptied into midtown Manhattan, the Canadiens were left in the familiar silence of the losing room.
“I say this every year and it’s becoming too much, but sometimes you’ve got to learn what it’s like to lose and how bad this feels to know how hard you’ve got to push to win,” said Canadiens defenceman Josh Gorges. “When you get older and you’ve been through it enough times, it gets harder and harder because the window gets smaller and smaller.”
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