The Montreal Canadiens eliminated Stanley Cup champions the Pittsburgh Penguins from the NHL playoffs on Wednesday and booked their first trip to the Eastern Conference final in nearly 20 years.
Montreal will play the winner of today’s decisive Game 7 between the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers, who stayed alive with a 2-1 victory on Wednesday in the night’s other action.
The upstart Canadiens, who surprised the top-seeded Washington Capitals in the first round, took the decisive seventh game 5-2 in Pittsburgh and dashed the Penguins’ hopes of becoming the league’s first repeat champion since 1998.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“They did a lot of good things that good teams need to do to win,” said Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby, who had one goal in the series. “Unfortunately for us, we didn’t do that.”
Thousands of Canadiens fans, many who watched the game on big screens at the Bell Centre in Montreal, raced onto the nearby downtown streets to celebrate the improbable victory.
Brian Gionta scored twice for Montreal and young Slovakian goalie Jaroslav Halak made 37 saves as the team’s post-season run continued.
After entering the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s lowest seed, Montreal erased a 3-1 series deficit to defeat Washington in the first round, before knocking out a heavily-favored Penguins team that had led the series 3-2.
In the do-or-die contest, Montreal raced to a 4-0 advantage to silence the Pittsburgh crowd and chase starting goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury after just 13 shots.
Gionta put the visitors on top 32 seconds into the first period and Dominic Moore also scored for a 2-0 lead.
Michael Cammalleri, who leads all playoff goal scorers with 12, and Travis Moen padded the lead with goals in the second period.
The Penguins fought back before the period ended with goals from Chris Kunitz and Jordan Staal, but Gionta sealed the win when he scored 10 minutes into the third period.
“We might be changing some minds,” Cammalleri said of the team’s underdog tag. “We’ve had that underlying confidence. It’s been good so far, but we have to get better.”
FLYERS FIGHTBACK
Flyers goaltender Michael Leighton, who played in his first post-season game earlier this week after starter Brian Boucher was injured, made 30 saves in his latest appearance and held Boston scoreless until the game’s final minute.
With the win, the Flyers erased Boston’s 3-0 series lead and could become just the third team in NHL history to overcome such a deficit and win the series.
Mike Richards and Danny Briere put the Flyers 2-0 up, before Boston’s Milan Lucic scored with a minute to go.
Boston have not appeared in the Eastern Conference final since 1992, while Philadelphia last made it that far in 2008.
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