Canadiens Complete 'Unfathomable' Comeback

The word "unfathomable" has been showing up a lot in discussions involving the Montreal Canadiens lately, and it's no wonder.

The team just put the cherry on top of their, yes, unfathomable comeback in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against Alexander Ovechkin's top-seeded Washington Capitals, winning their third straight match, a 2-1 nail-biter, to take the series in seven games.

The Habs became the first No. 8-seeded team in NHL history to emerge from a 3-1 hole to upset the No.1-ranked team since the current playoff format was adopted in 1994.

Completing the feat, however, was no easy task. The Capitals controlled most of the first period of Game 7, and most of the contest, too, for that matter.

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Ovechkin was a presence early on, running the Habs defencemen in front of the net and throwing a long rocket at Jaroslav Halak. Alexander Semin almost beat Montreal to the scoreboard when he rung one off the far post behind Halak after Brooks Laich set him up on a 3-on-2. Semin is now goalless in 14 straight playoff contests.

While the Capitals out-hustled the Canadiens in the first, they also exhausted themselves, throwing bad-angle shots at Halak, not waiting for quality chances, which was more or less what Joe Corvo predicted after Halak stoned Washington in Game 6.

"The dam's going to break," the Caps blue-liner promised Monday. "He can't save 60 shots again so we'll just put as many shots as we can on him and see what happens."

Sorry, Joey. When it comes to Halak, your team will have to learn never to say never. Halak made another 41 saves on the Caps Wednesday.

When Mike Green took a bad interference penalty for Washington at the end of the third, Montreal took advantage. Controlling the puck beautifully in the offensive zone, they waited for just the right shot -- a perfectly placed wrister by Marc-Andre Bergeron that landed snug in the top left corner with 29 seconds remaining in the period.

The Habs held on through the second, playing decent positional hockey but relying largely on Halak to hold off the Capitals, who had several chances through the middle stretch.

In a playoffs littered with controversial no-goal calls, it seemed no surprise when an apparent equalizer by Ovechkin was waved off because Mike Knuble's skate struck Halak's pad in the crease. There was a moment of elation at Verizon Center as Ovie unleashed his usual celebratory whooping and hollering, but the ref's call stuck.

The first half of the third period unfolded much like the second, except that while the Canadiens continued to play mostly tame, defensive hockey, the Capitals got angry, bearing down very hard on Halak as they tried to get on the board and save themselves from elimination. But again, quality chances were few. Most of the ample threats by the Capitals in the first ten minutes were the result of chaotic scrums in front.

The second half of the third was another story. Talk about a hand-wringing end to this remarkable series.

Things started heating up with 6:17 remaining, when the Habs rung one off the post behind a sleepy Semyon Varlamov, reminding everyone that they did not intend to succumb to a last-minute rally by Washington. With four minutes left, Ovie went end-to-end and nearly put one past Halak, but the play reinforced the impression of a hockey team relying too much on the individual efforts of a few hot-shots to win -- this isn't pond hockey after all.

The Habs bought some insurance with 3:36 to go when Hal Gill went the extra mile to tip the puck to Dominic Moore, pictured above, who placed it over the left blocker of Varlamov -- another gorgeous finish -- to make it 2-0.

Back came the Caps, sort of, with Brooks Laich finally putting Washington on the board with an ugly goal that ricocheted between five or six sticks and bodies before finding a prostrate Laichs's blade and eventually the back of the net.

After a high-sticking penalty assigned to Ryan O'Byrne at 18:16, and with the Caps about to pull Varlamov to make it 6-on-4, you could detect fear in Halak's eyes.

But the penalty wasn't decisive and the Habs finished well, nearly scoring two empty-netters before the clock wound down.

The stunning loss by the Capitals was remarkable for so many reasons, not least that the best power-play in the league went 1-for-33 with the man advantage in this series. Their failure to get the puck past Halak, who only allowed three goals on the Caps' last 134 shots, will also be remembered by Washington fans for years to come.

Montreal advances to the Eastern Conference semi-finals, and will face the Pittsburgh Penguins, another formidable opponent, Friday night at 7 p.m. in the Steel City.