Alex Kovalev turned his season around just in time to spark the Montreal Canadiens to an unprecedented upset.
For the first time in their rich history, the Canadiens won a playoff series in which they trailed 3-1. And for the second time in three years, they knocked off the favored Boston Bruins in the first round.
"Our players showed a lot of character," Montreal coach Claude Julien said. "It would have been easy to throw in the towel after we lost that fourth game."
Kovalev assisted on Richard Zednik's two third-period goals in the Canadiens' 2-0 win Monday night that clinched the series in seven games. But in Game 4, Kovalev was the prime culprit in an overtime loss.
He was hit on the arm near Montreal's blue line and held it while allowing Glen Murray to go by him for the winning goal. It was just one more bump in a season in which he had only one goal and two assists after Montreal obtained him from the New York Rangers.
"The most important thing was to save it for the playoffs," Kovalev said with a smile. His next series will be against Tampa Bay, which had the best record in the Eastern Conference.
There was plenty of self-imposed pressure on Bruins captain Joe Thornton to play in the series after he missed the last two regular-season games with what coach Mike Sullivan called "an upper body injury." Once the series ended, Sullivan said it was a painful rib injury.
But Thornton was determined.
"It's something you have to do in the playoffs," he said. "It's devastating [that] we lost the game. It's unacceptable."
Thornton, Boston's top scorer, didn't get a point even though he played in all seven games against the Canadiens.
In the only other game Monday night, Calgary beat Vancouver 3-2 in overtime to advance to the second round.
On Tuesday night, Ottawa was at Toronto -- with the winner advancing to play Philadelphia in the second round.
The Bruins had just three goals in the last three games against Jose Theodore, who posted the first playoff shutout of his career even though Boston played well for most of the night.
"He definitely stepped his game up," Boston's Mike Knuble said. "When he's on his game, they're a very difficult team to beat."
Theodore stopped 32 shots, but Boston goalie Andrew Raycroft also played well and couldn't do much to stop the first goal with 9:08 left. He was on the bench when Zednik clinched the win with an empty-net goal with 7.8 seconds remaining on Montreal's fourth shot of the third period.
On the first goal, Kovalev skated behind the Bruins net and shot the puck from the goal line to Raycroft's right. It hit the side of the net and bounced in front, where Zednik was unguarded.
The Canadiens were 0-12 in seven-game series they trailed 3-1. They got as close as 3-3 just one other time, in 1954. The Bruins were 17-0 when ahead 3-1.
"When we lost the first game and were down 3-1 in the series, we never gave up," Kovalev said.
Neither did the Bruins. They just couldn't hold the Canadiens off in the last three games.
Flames 3, Canucks 2
At Vancouver, British Columbia, Martin Gelinas scored a power-play goal 1:25 into overtime and Calgary won a playoff series for the first time since 1989.
Matt Cooke's second goal tied it for Vancouver with 5.7 seconds left in regulation, but the Canucks started the overtime down a man because of Ed Jovanovski's high-sticking penalty with 27 seconds remaining.
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