Dead or Canadiens?

Remember the game?  Peter Jennings, John Denver, John Candy, Michael J. Fox?  When they do the autopsy on Game 7 between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Montreal Canadiens they won't need to call in the forensics experts from CSI.  Cause of death was clear.  Blunt force trauma to the back of the net.

I haven't seen or heard an interview or read anybody else's take, but you don't need a graduate degree in iceology to know the better team won.  Pittsburgh was the better team in each of the first six games, yet the series was tied 3-3.  Last night was a blowout.  I had suggested that the only way the Canadiens had a chance in this series was if they dominated special teams.  I was wrong.  Through six games the Canadiens hadn't dominated special teams, yet they were right in it.  Last night they did dominate special teams and the game was never in doubt.  In 1967 Jean Beliveau scored the first goal in the Civic Arena as the Canadiens welcomed the Penguins to the NHL with a 2-1 defeat.  Brian Gionta put a big bleu, blanc et rouge bow of symmetry on the old building when he cashed in at 10:00 of the third period to seal a 5-2 Montreal win.

There was little drama.  Sidney Crosby took a penalty ten seconds in and for the third time in the last four games the Penguins found themselves behind in the first few minutes.  There was a moment at the start of the third period, down 4-2, when there was a chance for the home team.  The crowd was into it.  The momentum was turning.  With a four on three power play to start the last twenty, the Penguins could  close the deficit to one.  But forces, namely Hall Gil and Josh Georges, conspired against them.  And as was the case with their other five chances, they failed to score.  All that remained was the handshake line, a wonderful tradition, but such emphatic closure for the loser.

Jacques Martin put together a fabulous game plan.  Jaroslav Halak was tremendous in goal.  Mike Cammalleri continued his Guy Lafleur impersonation and the Canadiens played solid, responsible and opportunistic hockey throughout the lineup.  On Pittsburgh's side the finger pointing can start at the top and include virtually everyone.  Ray Shero's trade deadline acquisitions added little this year.  Crosby and Evgeni Malkin combined for two goals in the series.  Sergei Gonchar played his worst game in five years and hardly seemed to care.  Marc-Andre Fleury continued to be spectacularly inconsistent and, for a change, failed to come up big after a loss.  Few others stepped up to help carry the load.

The full post-mortem can be written another day, but suffice it to say the Penguins did not close the Civic Arena in grand fashion.  It is a wonderful old building with the charm that comes with age and, more importantly, memories.  I wonder if, in a nod to history the schedule makers will have Montreal help the Penguins open the new one this fall, because that's the next time the Penguins will hit the ice in any meaningful fashion.  Congratulations to Montreal.  Last night it was better to be the Canadiens.