The Boston Bruins bring out the best in the Montreal Canadiens. Arguably the NHL’s greatest rivalry has been decidedly one-sided in favor of the Habs with Montreal owning a 10–2–0 record against Boston over the last three regular seasons.
On Sunday night, Montreal completed its four-game regular season sweep of Boston with a near-perfect 3–1 win at TD Garden in Boston.
The Habs beat the Bruins with their team speed, skill, and discipline. Montreal didn’t take a single penalty and used its speed to close down Boston. When down 2–1 late in the third, Boston pulled goalie Tuukka Rask, but could not establish any possession in Montreal’s end.
Canadiens coach Michel Therrien called it a “good team victory” in his postmatch scrum broadcast in French on RDS.
“We don’t have a complex when we come and play here,” said first-line centre David Desharnais who is back playing with Max Pacioretty and hero of the hour Dale Weise.
Instrumental to Montreal’s success against the Bruins has been Weise. Weise, along with the team’s leading scorer Pacioretty, had a goal and an assist. Weise also had a goal and an assist in a 5–1 victory over the Bruins on Nov. 13, 2014.
During the series, Habs goaltender Carey Price went through a period of 159 minutes and 25 seconds of shutting out the Bruins. The goal Boston scored on Sunday to break the streak barely crossed the line and needed a review by the officials to make sure it did.
Matchup Working for Habs
Rask has been one of the NHL’s top goalies in recent years and won the Vezina Trophy last season. He has a stellar 125–73–29 career regular season record, but against Montreal, he’s 3–13–3.
“We have a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot, for whatever reason, against them and the kind of goals we give them are certainly not the kind of goals you see from our team most of the time,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said to NHL.com reporters.
