Home Analysis Playoff Recap – 3 Stars, Highlights, Presser: Habs Grab Home Ice

Playoff Recap – 3 Stars, Highlights, Presser: Habs Grab Home Ice

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Playoff Recap – 3 Stars, Highlights, Presser: Habs Grab Home Ice
(Photo by Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images)

First Round Playoffs  Game 1 Away game 1 | Wednesday April 16, 2014 | Canadiens lead the series 1-0

(Photo by Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images)
(Photo by Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images)

 Game Recap:

While the regular season series was characterized by defensive games, this contest was a high energy affair chock-full of mistakes and loose play.  The Canadiens dominated territorial play but the shot clock is quite misleading. Quality scoring chances were far more even. The Habs experience helped them remain resilient. Montreal has now gained home ice advantage.

 

Plus / Minus

▲   Lars Eller, Brian Gionta, Josh Gorges, Tomas Vanek, Danny Briere, Carey Price

▼   P.K. Subban, Brandon Prust, Mike Weaver

teamlogo_canadiens teamlogo_lightning

5

4

Boxscore:

 FINAL 1 2 3 OT SO T
 Canadiens 1 1 2 1 5
 Lightning 1 1 2 0 4

Summary:
Goal Scorers:
MTL  Plekanec(1), Gionta(1), Eller(1), Vanek(1), Weise(1)
TBL  Kucherov(1), Stamkos(1), Killorn(1), Stamkos(2)
Goalies:
MTL Price (W)  1-0-0
TBL Lindback (L)  0-0-1
aagamerecap

Shots on Goal:

 FINAL 1 2 3 OT T
 Canadiens 14 8 13 9 44
 Lightning 4 7 5 9 25

 NHL Three Stars
NHL3stars
  1.  Dale Weise  MTL 
  2.  Steven Stamkos  TBL
  3.  Thomas Vanek  MTL
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 Post-game Press Conference

186237429_slideCoach Michel Therrien

  • “I thought that we played a solid game but nothing was bothering the team even if we gave up the first goal. Bang, we came back and scored the other one.”
  • “I felt a lot of positive with our attitude during the game. Even (when) there were some breakdowns, the [Lightning] capitalized on our breakdowns, but their attitude was good.”
  • “There’s things that we’re going to concentrate (on) but I really liked the way that we played. I thought that we played a really solid game, a solid road game. We tried to dictate (the pace of) the game tonight. This is what we did.”
  • Carey [Price] was outstanding in OT, he kept us in the game.”
  • “We kept our composure. We didn’t want to get out of the game plan. The players stuck to the game plan and they got rewarded at the end.”

Forward Dale Weise

  • “Playing for my favorite team growing up, I’ve probably scored that goal a million times in my driveway. It feels good to actually do it in real life.”
  • “I knew I wasn’t going to miss from there. I got down on one leg, the old Brett Hull, and I just ripped it.”

jon-cooper

Lightning head coach Jon Cooper

  • “It was a good hockey game. Montreal played well. It comes down to overtime. Next goal wins. They got the next one.”
  • “I felt bad (for Anders Lindback.) He gives up five (goals) so people are probably going to look and say ‘oh well, he gave up five’ but if you look at the overtime goal we put him in a tough situation when you leave a guy in front of the net all by himself. A couple of those other goals they scored, like, we hung him out to dry a little bit. It’s tough, it’s tough for any goalie.”
  • “I don’t know what their coach said but I didn’t go into this one thinking that there was going to be nine goals scored in the game. If you’re going down the road of ‘Lindback cost us the game’ it’s by no means. He made all the saves he had to make. You just can’t leave some of these guys open the way that we did or give them the chances that they had. You give them enough chances they’re eventually going to score. And that’s what they did.”
  • “The lion’s share of our team, that was their first NHL playoff game. So, when you really think about it, we fell behind twice in the third period  and found a way to bounce back both times to get it to overtime. We had our chances to win that hockey game. We just didn’t.”
  • “Do we have better in us? Most certainly we do. Are we going to chalk that one up as ‘that’s the best we can play?’ I’ve been with this team for 82 games. I know that we can play much better than that. We had our chances. We just fell one short.”
  • “We were outshot 14- to-4 in the first period, something like that? Scoring chances were 5-3. I think a lot of [the Canadiens] shots were just shots. I don’t think they were big time scoring threats.  As the game went on, they started getting more grade A scoring chances but we had our share of grade A’s.”
  • “We were trying for the home-run play a little too often instead of getting a little bit of zone time and controlling the play, taking a little momentum from them. They did that to us. They got the zone time, they may not have got grade-A shots all the time but then we would have to make a save, a defensive zone draw for us, we’d win, we’d get it out, they’d win, all of a sudden we would be back again. So that’s a little bit uncharacteristic for us.
  • “Bad news is that we lost the game. Good news is one game doesn’t win the series. We get to come back tomorrow and regroup and find a way. That’s the great thing about a 7-game series.”

 


To look back at the full lineups for tonight’s game, check the Game Day preview.


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