1979. It’s been more than four decades since the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs faced each other in the playoffs.
The Canadiens are huge underdogs in this series, with odds makers giving Toronto an 83-per cent chance of winning. However, this Montreal team is not the team that Toronto and the rest of the North Division played against in the final two months.
The Canadiens had many injuries and were exhausted due to an unheard-of compressed schedule due to a COVID-19 break. Game one in Toronto, however, found the Canadiens rested and ready to make it a series with a 2-1 win.
Wilde Horses
The best Canadiens player in the first game was clearly Josh Anderson. It’s interesting to note, too, that he is exactly the type of player who you would expect to be a good playoff performer.
The playoffs are designed for big men who can skate. Anderson brings size to the game and he brings speed. Anderson used that speed to give Montreal its first goal of the playoffs. He broke between the Leafs defenders and took it hard to the net earning a breakaway. The shot was perfect, going off the post and in to beat Jack Campbell.
In the second period, another tremendous play was seen by Anderson. Mitch Marner was on a 2-on-1 and had a clear cut chance coming. It was Marner’s chance to easily complete as he skated down the entire length of the ice.
However, Anderson put his head down from the Leafs blue line skating as fast as he possibly could to catch up to Marner just before he was going to shoot on Price. Marner had a clean look and his upcoming shot had every chance to be a goal. Anderson tied up Marner’s stick and puck went harmlessly into the corner. Terrific play.
The second best player on the ice for the Canadiens for game one was Eric Staal. He was not good in the 21 games that he played for Montreal. Staal had two goals and one assist and was an awful minus 10. He is 36 years of age. If anyone is going to lose their legs playing five games in eight nights continually, it’s someone aging.
After an eight day break, Staal was much better. He is not the Staal of yesteryear when he was one of the best players in the game, but he brought experience and smarts to this one. He also brought a much higher level of compete than he had been able to bring before. Staal’s best play was the head-man pass to free Anderson leading to the Canadiens first period goal.
The second Canadiens goal had to be the most memorable goal of Paul Byron’s career.
The goal wasn’t just second effort, it was third, and fourth effort, too. Byron tried to win a skating battle for the puck, while shorthanded, with Rasmus Sandin, who got to the puck at the same time. However, both players fell, and the puck remained in play, rolling helplessly toward goal.
Byron persevered. He wasn’t able to get up, so he kept playing as he slid toward the goal. It looked more like the end of a toboggan run than a hockey play. Byron from his knees pushed the puck up and over the shoulder of Campbell. It was a goal that only Byron could make in that moment.
No one else on the team would have been fast enough to even engage effectively in that puck battle, never mind the rest which was a bit of hockey magic.
Now to the much-needed Carey Price conversation. Price made 35 stops in the contest out of 36 shots. Last playoffs in the bubble, Price had a .936 save percentage as the Canadiens pulled off an upset of the Penguins and challenged the Flyers the following round. Price then followed it with a .900 regular season. In fact, in the last four regular campaigns, Price is only a .907 goalie. That’s not that good, but bring on the playoffs, and he’s a different animal.
He had a .972 in game one. That will do, Carey. That will do.
Wilde Goats
Sadly, there was a horrific injury in this contest, when John Tavares got hit by Ben Chiarot. He fell to the ice. Precisely at that time, Corey Perry was skating by and kneed Tavares directly in the head. He was out cold, exhibiting one of the most severe fencing responses that you will ever see. Tavares was concussed and the moment of neurological difficulty lasted from 15 to 20 seconds. Tavares tried to get up on his knees instinctively and he fell right back again.
It was brutal and completely unintentional, and everyone in the arena from both teams was concerned for Tavares. You could see it on the faces of all of the players that they were in shock and frightened for their comrade. It was one of those moments that there was only one team on the ice — the team of professional hockey player.
That is until that ridiculous code took over. It’s the code that says you have to answer for any injury or hit or moment of grief for your own team by making the player who did it suffer. Nick Foligno challenged Perry to a fight on the ensuing face-off. Perry wasn’t interested, but he did what he had to. He fought. He didn’t even try, probably knowing that if he won the fight, then he would have to answer for that code.
How ridiculous. In what world does it make sense to watch a man suffer a brain injury and get right back out there, seeing if you can make another man suffer another brain injury? The code isn’t changing. It’s idiotic, but it’s not changing. You’re not just going to change the way these men think no matter how accidental the original moment is.
This isn’t to point a finger at Foligno, either. He just did what he was supposed to do in the long unwritten rules of the game. It could have been Foligno, or Simmons, or Muzzin, or anyone, really. The Leafs agreed they had to do this. Perry knew he had to fight.
And we all did our part, too. We watched and moved on.
The Canadiens had severe injury troubles for the second half of the season after their COVID-19 break, playing too much hockey in too little time. They finally got to healthy for game one of the playoffs. That lasted one period. Jake Evans was injured in the second period breaking up the hottest line on the team at the end of the regular season with Artturi Lehkonen and Paul Byron. As a result, if Evans can’t go for game two, expect Jesperi Kotkaniemi to draw in for game two.
Many Canadiens fans were quite bothered that Kotkaniemi wasn’t chosen to play game one. It appears they will get to see how he is able to do this season drawing in due to injury. They’ll be vindicated in a hurry, if Kotkaniemi can show the form that made him one of the best forwards of the bubble playoffs of 2020.
Wilde Cards
There haven’t been fans in the arenas in Canada since March of 2020 because of COVID-19. That, however, changes May 29th if there is a game six for the Leafs and Canadiens. With over 50 per cent of the Quebec population partially vaccinated, and case counts going down weekly, Premier Francois Legault has given the green light for the Canadiens to open up the doors to the faithful.
It will be a cautious opening with safe social distancing taken into account. That means the mammoth Bell Centre, holding 21,273, will have only 2,500 in attendance to increase the chance that everyone remains safe.
That is only 11 percent of the Bell Centre, but those 2,500 will be in full voice, if Montreal is still alive in the first round series. The first cautious steps from Quebec have not been followed by Alberta or Manitoba. They both have said their situation is not secure enough in their province to allow for it. Ontario, also surging with case counts, will not open the doors for its hockey team.
There was a lot of sacrifice since January with a five-month-long curfew in Quebec, but it might just be a sacrifice that gives its beloved team a boost. It’s an entirely new concept in supporting your team — stay healthy to give your club a bigger home ice advantage.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.
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