Team captain Saku Koivu, Alex Kovalev, The Kostityn brothers and Tom Kostopolous shine for the Habs in game 1 in the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
The Canadiens got off to a pretty good start, but was luck was not on their side, a few goal post, and open net, but could not get one in. The Flyers where able to capitalise on the bad bounces from the Canadiens defensemen. First, Patrice Brisebois tried to intercept a pass and deflected it in back of Carey Price. A few minutes later, an another mistake caused the second Flyers goal. The Flyers went in to the dressing room with a 2-0 lead.
The Canadiens got their legs back and took advantage of the Flyers lack of speed on defense and Andrei Kostityn scored on a missed pass from brother Sergei. The Habs number 46 had missed on a penalty shot. On contraversial goal by Alex Kovalev while short-handed.
In the third, in the opening seconds, Carey Price mishandled a shot, and bounced of Joffrey Lupul skate and landed behind the Habs goaltender. With a minute and nine seconds to go in the game, Flyers take a penalty, Coach Carbonneau calls a time out and pulls Carey Price in favour of a sixth player on the powerplay. Alex Kovalev flips a wrist shot past Flyers goaltender, Martin Biron, to tie things up with 29 seconds left.
In the early stages of the overtime, with less than a minute played, journeyman, Tom Kostopolous ticks one in behind Biron and wins it for the Habs to the joy of the Full house fans in the Bell Centre.
Alex Kovalev and Tom Kostopolous got Stars one and three, and also honoured as NHL.com’s stars two and three.
Habs and Flyers return for game two tomorrow night at 7 pm at the Bell Centre on RDS or CBC’s Hockey night in Canada.
After shinning in the series against the Minnesota Wild, Jose Theodore had a nightmare evening last night in game 1 of the Detroit and Colorado semi-final. After seeing his team take a 1-0 lead, he was victim of four unanswered Detroit goals, before being pulled by Colorado coach Joel Quenneville for Peter Budaj, who gave up nothing. Colorado got a lift and stormed towards a comeback, but fell short a goal. Will Quenneville go back with Theodore or will he chance it with Budaj ? We shall find out tomorrow afternoon at 3pm in Detroit, catch the game on NBC or on TSN.
The other two conference semi-finals start tonight in Pittsburgh and in San Jose.
