One of the sadder things about the current NHL landscape is the descent of the Canadiens into the league’s Bermuda Triangle of mediocrity. Montreal has fallen short of the playoffs in three of the previous four seasons. The winners of 24 Stanley Cups will not make the postseason again if the current season rumbles back to life.
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Montreal’s downturn has tossed a sodden blanket over what was once the fiercest standoff in sports. The Bruins-Canadiens rivalry, formerly a fire starter, is now just another date on the calendar when no tempers flare and few bodies collide.
With the lukewarm state of current Boston-Montreal imbalance as a control group, the hostility on Feb. 9, 2011, which we rewatched for this exercise, looks like all-out warfare.
The Bruins won 8-6. The teams combined for 182 penalty minutes. Goalies Tim Thomas and Carey Price squared off.
It was beautiful.
The primary flareup was Thomas vs. Price
It started, naturally, with Brad Marchand. The left wing flattened James Wisniewski behind the Montreal net on an icing. That brought Brian Gionta into the fracas.
Price was doing his part by pulling opponents out of the pile. Thomas spotted an outnumbered situation, left his crease and engaged Price to even out the numbers.
It wasn’t much of a scrap. But every goalie fight is a good one.
The aftermath
After the Thomas-Price bout, a crush of bodies went to the penalty box. Six Bruins were sent off: Marchand, Zdeno Chara, Steven Kampfer, Shawn Thornton, Mark Recchi and Patrice Bergeron. Physical distancing was impossible.
The second confrontation
It came after Nathan Horton and P.K. Subban jostled following a third-period whistle. They had been tangling all night. The game featured Horton at his best: fast, eager to shoot, physical, angry, emotionally engaged. As such, Horton (one goal, four assists) could not help but clash with Subban.
Although the two clawed at each other, the main event broke out at the other end of the zone: David Krejci versus Benoit Pouliot. The fight did not last long. Montreal’s Pouliot took care of business with a hard right to Krejci’s chin. With blood leaking from his face, Krejci hustled off the ice. He later said that he tried to skate quickly past the Montreal bench to avoid a flood of insults.
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Pot boiling over
Four fights took place at 19:11 of the third period. First was Andrew Ference versus Travis Moen. Just as that fight concluded, things went completely sideways. Thornton had his way with Roman Hamrlik. Johnny Boychuk unloaded on Jaroslav Spacek.
Finally, Boston’s Gregory Campbell lit up Tom Pyatt. It was vicious. Campbell got his left hand free, and with his elbow pad dangling off his arm, the No. 4 center speed-bagged Pyatt. It was the fastest flurry of punches thrown by a combatant that night.
Itching for more
Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid looked somewhat jealous from the bench. He scratched his itch on the next shift by getting his gloves off and landing a few on Max Pacioretty.
Fortunately for Pacioretty, linesmen Michel Cormier and Brian Murphy put an end to things before McQuaid really got going. It could have gotten ugly.
The repercussions
Six of the Bruins logged fighting majors. This did not include Chara or Milan Lucic, two of the league’s most dangerous punchers. Man, was this team tough.
Krejci, as usual, led all forwards with 19:17 of ice time. The game was peak Krejci: slippery, tough to read, horizontal when everything else was vertical. The center could not help but record three assists with two fully powered monsters like Lucic and Horton on his flanks.
The performance confirmed one of Claude Julien’s favorite sayings: “As David Krejci goes, we go.”
A different time
The defensive-zone formations look like they’re from another planet. When Montreal entered the offensive zone, the defensemen sagged back and retreated inside the dots. This was by design. The Bruins rightly assumed that Thomas and Tuukka Rask could handle any shots from outside the dots. Their priority was slamming the slot and net-front house firmly shut.
This would never fly today. This strategy simply concedes too much room on the flanks. Even if shots from such areas are low-percentage attempts, it leads to more opposing possession time and increases the likelihood of defensive breakdowns taking place.
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Now the Bruins are instructed to deny entries at the blue line by following three principles: gap, angle, challenge.
Defenseman-to-defenseman was routine
When Thomas left his crease to retrieve the puck behind the goal line, both of his defensemen would follow. This way, once Thomas handed off the puck to one defenseman, his partner would be available to receive a defenseman-to-defenseman pass.
This, too, never happens now. It’s usually one defenseman behind the line as an outlet for Rask or Jaroslav Halak. If both defensemen end up behind the net, the preferred maneuver is a quick reverse. The exchange is faster, and the defensemen always have their feet moving. The leaguewide emphasis is on rapid transition up the ice, not the conservative and antiquated defenseman-to-defenseman breakout.
Chara was all over the place
The captain landed a game-high seven shots on net. He was credited with five hits.
Perhaps the strangest thing was watching him do his usual thing in four-on-four situations. Chara does not have many opportunities to do so now. Time has taken its toll on Chara’s straight-line speed.
Zach Hamill made a high-end play
Hamill, as the third-line center, took the puck in stride, pulled two defenders toward him, then made a backhanded tape-to-tape dish to Michael Ryder for a bang-bang goal.
It was the only play worth noting.
Hamill, 23 years old at the time, was already facing long odds as a full-time NHL player. He was too slight and not hard enough on the puck to earn regular shifts.
It was not Hamill’s fault that the Bruins selected him eighth overall in 2007. But his 20-game NHL résumé is proof he was one of that class’s biggest busts.
What was to come
The signs of the Marchand-Bergeron east-west creativity were showing. The perpetual partners, with David Pastrnak now riding sidecar, have applied their shared shifts, processing power and skill to turn the offensive zone into their playground. No present-day line can sling the puck around from side to side like the No. 1 trio.
You could see this approach in its nascency with Recchi as their right wing. The puck did not stick on their blades for long before they snapped it to one another for offensive sniffs.
(Photo: Elsa / Getty Images)
