Habs Sqeak Past Panthers

  It was a scary series.  If you look at the numbers, the Panthers should have won this round.  So what happened?  Montreal was outplayed in every way statistically.  Even the league's leading power play struggled.  Our faceoff advantage vanished.  All the things that make Montreal a great team disapeared.  The biggest reason for the Habs' victory was an early injury to Aaron Ekblad in the game 1.  Ekblad missed games 2 and 3 of the series and it's no surprise that Montreal won both those games.  Ekblad returned and Mike Smith was chased out of the net for a second time in four games.  The Habs didn't give up.  They won game six to even the series despite recording only 15 shots on goal.  Mike Smith was rock solid in the final matches and Montreal killed off 16 consecutive penalties to win the series.  Florida only scored twice on the power play in games 1 and 2. 

  After eliminating the top two teams in the league standings, the Habs must now face another scary opponent.  The Devils finished the season strong and given more games, they could have likely propelled themselves to the top of the East.  Montreal will need to perform better if they want to move on to the cup finals.  "We can't count on miracle saves and injured opponents to get us through the next round."  As former GM of the Devils, GM Rainville would love nothing more than to beat his old team in a dominant fashion and get another shot at glory.