TORONTO—Somewhere in the west island of Montreal, Claude Julien is smiling.
After a tumultuous 48 hours—starting with a Game 1 loss for his Canadiens, followed by a trip to the hospital with chest pains and then a coronary procedure to insert an artery stent, and ending with him celebrating a win from his home—the coach had to have been ebullient. For 60 minutes, his team was everything he ever hoped they’d be: aligned, engaged, shot out of a cannon and working straight to the end.
The result was a 5-0 romp over a Philadelphia Flyers team that hadn’t lost a game since Mar. 10.
Series tied: 1-1.
With Julien at home, and Kirk Muller standing in with his finger on the pulse, the Canadiens began a dominant effort with two goals, a 16-6 shot advantage and a 34-16 edge in attempts.
Philadelphia’s first shot of the game came 16:23 in—a wrist shot from 44 feet out, off the stick of captain Claude Giroux. It was about as dangerous as the Flyers were in this game, which is to say not very dangerous at all.
Late in the second period, after they failed on a 5-on-3 power play, Travis Konecny skated to the bench and made three attempts at breaking his stick over the boards. It was a perfect snapshot of the frustration he and his Philadelphia teammates experienced in this game.
On Montreal’s side of the ledger, it was all aces. Had they made a checklist of what they wanted to get out of this game, they’d have come away from with nearly every box filled.
Tomas Tatar, the Canadiens’ leading scorer in the regular season, scored his first two goals of these Stanley Cup Playoffs. Max Domi, after five pointless games, got bumped to a line with Jonathan Drouin and Jesperi Kotkaniemi and helped set up three goals. Their power play, which stumbled all season and failed on 12 attempts in the qualifying round against the Pittsburgh Penguins, came through for a second straight game. And Joel Armia, who was bumped down to a fourth line with Alex Belzile and Jake Evans, scored his first goal of the playoffs by banking one in with a little over 22 minutes left to play.
The goal chased Carter Hart from his net. The freshly-turned 22-year-old had been nothing short of brilliant in his playoff debut, stopping just under 97 per cent of the shots he faced through three starts, and he was hardly to blame.
Hart had little help, and the Canadiens were full value.
They weren’t perfect, but it’s hard to imagine they can play better. When they bent, they didn’t break. And when the Flyers pressed, there was Carey Price.
The Montreal goaltender wasn’t the difference; he was just Price. He faced 30 shots and turned them all aside for his second shutout in six games.
But the big story was a firing-on-all-cylinders performance, one that Julien has longed to see out of this team all season. That they found it without him on their bench was bittersweet.
“They want to play hard for him,” said Muller prior to the game. “Our staff wants to do well for him and get him back here. So, that’s our biggest focus right now and that’s what we’re going to focus on…We want to keep this thing rolling so we get Claude back.”
Mission accomplished.
The Canadiens wrestled away home-ice advantage from the top-seeded Flyers with Friday’s win, and they’ll hope to give Julien more to smile about when Sunday’s Game 3 rolls around.
