Oh my, forget the "Battle of Ontario". What we have brewing here is potentially gargantuan. I gave Michel Therrien a lot of credit for getting so much out of his team during the regular season, but the playoffs are a different beast. Neither team is particularly physical (not like the Leafs or the Bruins) but Ottawa clearly has a size and toughness edge over Montreal. So Montreal (and Ottawa to a lesser extent) resorted to playing a chippy game tonight and the refs weren't standing for any of it. There was a brawl that saw 8 players (4 a side) get game misconducts. Ottawa played most of the game with only 5 defencemen as Wiercioch went down in the first period. That's the second of three games that they've been short-handed on defence and still won.
Paul MacLean called a timeout with 17 seconds left with Ottawa on the power play. Do you think he was yanking Therrien's chain just a little? I guess it was payback for Therrien calling him disrespectful after Game 1. In tonight's press conference, he called MacLean "classless". Paul Maurice cracked me up - he said "These two coaches hate each other so much right now, they can't even stand each other's tie."
Eric Gryba will be back for Game 4 after sitting out his two game suspension. Do you think they'll be trying to separate his head from his body?
Lastly, nice work by J.G. Pageau, showing a real good nose for the net and a good, quick release. The fans were singing the "Olé-Olé" song but sang "Pageau-Pageau".
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