When the goal horn sounded at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, it marked a continuation of one Cinderella story and the final chapter of another.
Members of the Montreal Canadiens were ready to shake hands at centre ice, meeting a Philadelphia Flyers team that was now four wins away from a Stanley Cup. Both teams were the bottom two seeded teams in the Eastern Conference and each team qualified for the playoffs in their final games of the regular season.
While the Flyers still had more games to play, the Canadiens were left to return to Montreal after they experienced a playoff run that led to fans rioting in the streets, Canadiens players becoming playoff heroes, and the surpassing of expectations.
It was a much different feeling a year earlier. The Canadiens were swept by the Boston Bruins in the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, ending their centennial season on a whimper. The team endured a complete overhaul the following offseason. Old faces like Saku Koivu, Alex Kovalev and Mike Komisarek made way for new faces: Michael Cammalleri, Brian Gionta, Hal Gill, Scott Gomez, a new head coach in Jacques Martin, and a new ownership group led by the Molson family.
A roster facing that much turnover would easily have some worry about being a cohesive unit. However, prognosticators still had the Canadiens as a playoff team. Some ranking the team as high as top of the Eastern Conference standings in their pre-season predictions.
What happened next was sure to remain with a generation of Canadiens fans starved for anything close to a Stanley Cup championship, and it still does to this very day. This is the story of the 2009-10 Montreal Canadiens.
Brian Gionta, Canadiens forward: It was a team in transition. The prospect of going there, obviously, a hockey crazed city. That was a huge draw. Talking with Bob Gainey who was the GM at the time and the changeover he was trying to make, and the people he was trying to bring in. If you remember, we had, probably, I want to say eight to 10 free agents, trades, that kind of came through that summer. A complete overhaul of the roster. I liked the direction of where they were going and what he was selling and obviously the hockey market that it is.
Michael Cammalleri, Canadiens forward: There was a lot of uncertainty. I think Montreal went into free agency that year with the most cap space. They kind of did a bit of an overhaul of the roster, in particular, more offensive scoring lines. With the exception of (Tomas) Plekanec, and maybe (Andrei) Kostitsyn, there was a lot of overhaul on that end of the lineup. And on the d-side.
Maxim Lapierre, Canadiens forward: Everybody knew we had to come in and build a new team basically from the inside with new leaders. We lost a lot of good players and leaders but we also got great players at the same time. We knew it was going to be a different vibe at the beginning, at training camp, guys not knowing each other. The new guys were top players so we knew they were going to come in and lead us right away, even if we didn’t know them.
Dominic Moore, Canadiens forward: I think when I first got there, it was a really interesting mix of players. The one thing you could say about that team is that it was not generic. There were personalities, there were all different types of players. Guys like Hal Gill, guys like Scott Gomez. Gionta. All different sizes, all different styles. I didn’t know how much that would add up to a really effective whole. Spacek, guys like that. Really good players but everyone played a completely different style and brought different things to the table. Lapierre, I could go on. Cammalleri. It was a really interesting mix.
Glen Metropolit, Canadiens forward: I went through the year before and it was just a big cluster. Guy (Carbonneau) got fired right when I got there. Bob Gainey came in and took over…I just remember it being a whirlwind. I (played) *22 games or so, being on the fourth line. The city was down on the team. And then, here comes the summer. I knew I had another year on my deal. And then we get around to July 1st. I was like ‘ah, I might get traded’. They get Cammalleri, Gomez, Spacek. I’m like ‘well, okay’. Great, great guys. Gionta. Those guys just gave me life.
*Writer’s note, Metropolit played 21 regular season games and four playoff games during the 2008-09 season.
Marc-Andre Bergeron, Canadiens defenceman: For me it was my first year, and it was the only year I played with them. I couldn’t believe it when I first signed. I was coming back from an injury, back surgery, from Minnesota. Then (Andrei) Markov got hurt early in the year. I received a phone call. My agent thought I would be a good fit. They talked to Julien BriseBois back then in Montreal. A couple hours later, everything was signed and I was a Montreal Canadiens player. It’s kind of funny, actually, how everything happened.
It was just a fun and a great year. We had a decent team that played really well that year.
The Canadiens did not play like a powerhouse team in the first half of the season and had to claw their way towards a postseason berth, including a comeback victory over the Anaheim Ducks which prolonged a winning streak that stretched to six games. Less than a month after being acquired via trade from the Florida Panthers, Dominic Moore showed his worth in a comeback victory.
Moore: The focus was simply trying to get in (the playoffs) and we were far from a guarantee. For me, the biggest turning point came in the game in Anaheim when we were down, I think it was 3-0. I remember assisting on, *I think it was Gionta who scored the goal that started the comeback.
*Writer’s note: Moore actually assisted on a Brian Gionta goal that made it 3-2.
After the streak ended, the Habs went on to win only three of their next 11 games. But earning a point in their final game of the season, a 4-3 shootout loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, was enough to get them into the playoffs. The Canadiens gift for making the playoffs as an eighth-seed? An Eastern Conference Quarterfinal matchup against Alexander Ovechkin and the Presidents Trophy-winning Washington Capitals, who were a favourite to go deep in that year’s Stanley Cup playoffs.
Ben Raby, Capitals Radio Host & WTOP Sports Anchor: (Expectations were) very high. They were ready to break through. The whole thing was that they had made the playoffs the two previous years. They lost in the first round in 2008, they lost in the second round in 2009. Game 7 at home to Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh won the ‘09 Cup. So, if you’re going on a logical stepping stone, the logical next step was at least get to the Eastern Conference finals, right?
And for most of that season that expectation didn’t change. They were in an awful division, they were in the Southeast Division circa 2010. They won the division, they won the conference, they won the President’s Trophy.
Cammalleri: We were well aware of Washington and how good they were … you’re not ignorant to the expectation and you’re not ignorant to what people think about you. You do consume enough to see the predictions, that’s for certain. You get an email every day with the league notes on (the series) and you certainly see people saying that Washington is going to win in four.
Moore: We definitely had a nothing-to-lose attitude. You know, Washington was the juggernaut and had all the weapons and the President’s Trophy and all that. We didn’t have any expectations. I think we knew we had some good players in our locker room.
Bergeron: Washington was actually a pretty young team still. Their core, their big players were all young.
Raby: Everybody thought Washington was going to win. They were 33 points clear of Montreal in the regular season standings. Washington was coming off an incredible season which still ranks among the best seasons, points and wins total-wise, post 2005 lockout. Everybody thought they were going to win, but I will say one person who I know wasn’t crazy about the matchup, if that makes sense, was Bruce Boudreau. It’s funny. If you dig up quotes of his in the days leading up to it. Some of it might be coach speak, they don’t want to get too overconfident. They don’t want to look too far ahead. But he said right from the first practice, right before the series started, that we better pay attention here.
The first game of the Capitals-Canadiens series began at the Verizon Center in Washington. Jose Theodore, a former Hart and Vezina trophy winner with the Canadiens, was between the pipes for the Capitals. Montreal countered with 24-year-old Slovak goaltender Jaroslav Halak.
Jacques Martin, Canadiens head coach: I felt that our goaltending had been extremely good, especially in the second half (of the season). Jaroslav Halak played really well.
By the time we got into the playoffs, Halak had kind of taken the toll as our go-to goalie. When we started the season, Carey Price was our number-one goalie. He played more games in the first half of the season than Halak. But because of his play, he earned the status of becoming our number one by the time we got in the playoffs. He had performed in the stretch run in the second half of the season. He outplayed Carey.
Moore: He was pretty quiet, low key, pretty chilled out personality. And at some points you couldn’t tell whether he would, you know, almost rather be doing something else. But I think that icy demeanour was an asset for us.
Lapierre: We got drafted the same year. We became NHL hockey players at the same time together … I knew what he was capable of. He’s the type of guy when he’s in the zone, you won’t get him out of there.
The puck dropped and the series was underway. It took 52 seconds for Canadiens defenceman Marc-Andre Bergeron to take a penalty.
Bergeron: My first shift, I took a penalty going across the ice. I tripped. I don’t know if it was obstruction. I don’t remember what it was. But I ended up getting a penalty. First shift, early in the game. I get out of the box and we get … kind of a break. I get the puck and I try to go around the defenceman and he pushes me in my (lower) back. I felt my ACL tear. I played for the remainder of the playoffs with a torn ACL.
I was pretty much just playing the power play. My leg was pretty loose and everything felt funny in my knee. It was an awkward, really an awkward feeling. And then when the playoffs ended, I ended up having a surgery. That was over six months of recovery and it was a really serious injury.
The Canadiens and Capitals traded goals in the first and third periods, resulting in a 2-2 tie after regulation. But it was a Tomas Plekanec overtime winner that would give the Canadiens a 3-2 victory over the Capitals and an early 1-0 series lead.
Cammalleri: It’s one of the things that creates hope and optimism where you’re like, if you can win one, why can’t you win four?
Game 2 saw the Habs take a 4-1 lead on the Capitals. Theodore allowed two goals on two shots, resulting in him being pulled in favour of Semyon Varlamov. It was the last the Habs would see of Theodore in the series. Habs forward Andrei Kostitsyn scored a hat-trick and the game seemed to be in the Canadiens’ hands. But the lead wouldn’t last, as the Habs allowed three goals in the third period and an eventual overtime winner from Nicklas Backstrom.
Gionta: They were a team that could make you pay at any point in time. At times throughout the series, we were just hanging on and that came back to haunt us. We gave up too many chances.
We were a team, all year, that was inconsistent. So, as soon as we slipped a little bit, that’s what caught us. And it was hard for us to get it back.
The Canadiens should have been up 2-0 on the Capitals in that series. Instead, they found themselves tied at one game apiece. The series would shift to Montreal for Game 3, where Glen Metropolit would play his first back from an injury he suffered in late March of that year.
Metropolit: I think it was my trap muscle. I think I got hit from the side and I tore a muscle in my trap. It was just agonizing to get back. Just trying to rush it. Didn’t let it fully heal. Finally, I got into the playoffs. It was just, the pace…it was fun, but playing against those teams? Holy…
Metropolit would return for Game 3, just in time for the Canadiens to be walloped 5-1. But the journeyman forward would pick up his first point of the series on a Michael Cammalleri goal in Game 4.
Cammalleri: Jacques (Martin) had started double shifting me a lot to try and switch up matchups. Particularly at home. And Glen Metropolit was a guy that was a really underrated player with just immense skill. I used to love getting out there on shifts with him because he could really just make great plays. And he double shifted me and I got out there with Metro and Metro made a play from behind the net to me and I chipped it in off the backhand.
The Canadiens would take a 2-1 lead, but the Caps would regain the lead late in the second before holding onto it for good. Washington held a 3-1 lead on Montreal, leaving the Habs with their backs against the wall. Something had to change.
The team kept players together at the Sofitel Hotel downtown before and after games, but they decided to switch things up in advance of Game 5 in Washington.
Martin: I don’t know if you remember the old days of the Canadiens. They used to go into the Laurentians (as) kind of a retreat for the playoffs. Like, the days of Henri Richard and those guys. It’s changed now but that’s what we had done. We were staying at the hotel the night before. And then after the game, the guys would go home and then they come in. Usually there’s one day between games at home. So, the next day they come in and we’d have practice and then have meetings and practice and then go home and then they’d come back, we’d have a team meal at some local restaurant. And then after that we go back and stay in the hotel.
Gionta: I had come from New Jersey and that was standard practice (under Lou) Lamouriello. In New Jersey, we made playoffs every year. That was the standard practice. At home, at night before games you’re in the hotel. After the game you could go home and then stay home that night. And then when you came for practice the next day, you’re basically going to practice and then the hotel.
Lapierre: Instead of going back home and whatever you do, see friends and family, or have extra things on your mind, you’re sitting at the hotel after games or before games. What you do is sit with your teammates and you take a coffee or you take your beer after the game, maybe. You talk about the game. What can we do better? How do we feel? It’s kind of an in-playoff team bonding even if at that point of the season you already have great team chemistry. It’s (a) special moment. Guys play cards together, they tell their teammates they played a good game tonight. Everybody gets confident.
Gionta: I want to say halfway through that series, maybe after games three or four, we actually went to the (coaching staff). It became not mandatory and became optional at that point.
Moore: We had been staying in the hotel at home up until we got down 3-1. And then you know, the coaching staff said all right, forget it. Everybody can stay at home.
I know that there may be some guys that feel like they can get better rest (staying in a hotel), they have kids or whatever. I have my personal take on it. Whatever you’ve been doing for all season preparing a certain way. Stick with that.
Meanwhile, following Game 4, the Capitals were aboard a plane leaving Montreal for Washington. Mother Nature, however, had other plans.
Raby: There was fog. They couldn’t land at the primary airport in D.C. that they fly into. They couldn’t fly into Dulles Airport. They couldn’t fly into Reagan Airport. So they wound up flying to Baltimore, which is about 45-60 minutes north of where they would typically land where all their cars were parked at Dulles. So they land in Baltimore and there weren’t any custom agents. So they had to stay on the plane until the early hours of the morning, 5:30 in the morning. And finally they get the custom agents. Then they have the taxi cab to Dulles airport where all their cars were parked. And then they eventually, you know, make their way home.
John Carlson, Washington Capitals defenceman: I don’t know about (it being) much of a distraction. I think we probably got home an hour or two later and then I think we couldn’t land. We had to land in Baltimore and then get cars home.
Raby: (Washington Capitals GM) George McPhee told me he walked into his house at 8:30 in the morning. So what happened was they washed out that day of practice, or meetings, or anything. They had nothing the day in between Games 4 and 5.
Carlson: It was, you know, an extra hour or two here and there. But you know, it’s not like we played the next night or anything.
Raby: Basically the players were just sent home and told ‘rest up, game 5 tomorrow’. And they came out of the gate, Game 5, terribly flat.
The Canadiens began Game 5 with two goals in the first period, coming from Travis Moen and Cammalleri. Ovechkin would score his fifth of the series in the second period, but it wasn’t enough as the Habs brought the series back to the Bell Centre for Game 6.
Moore: Obviously, you’re dejected for sure, when you’re down 3-1. I don’t think you would lie and say that you weren’t. I think, just in a weird way, it took the shackles off us a little bit and allowed us just to play the game.
Metropolit: I’ve won in Lugano, in Switzerland. I’ve been in a series where I’ve been down 3-0 and came back and won. I think there’s an inner confidence that you get when you know that you’re in games, but you end up losing a game so you’re like ‘Shit, we’re a couple posts away’ or whatever. As an athlete you learn that it’s all about the next shift, it’s not about your last one.
Game 6 featured the finest of Halak’s performances that spring, as the Canadiens fought to keep themselves alive in the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Gionta: There’s a few pictures engrained in my memory of four of us or so, just scrambling trying to block a shot. Halak’s down and out and somehow makes a huge save. I don’t know if it hit a glove or a stick, blocker side. Just, almost like an empty net, we’re all kind of scrambling around. And he’s just standing on his head. That’s what it was for that series. There was times where they were just peppering us and we’re just trying everything to put ourselves in front of the puck, try to stop it, keep it out, some way. It was like that desperation at times. He led that because he was giving us a chance every night. You win 4-1, but you probably should’ve lost 6-2.
Lapierre: I’ve seen some great performances from players, but for him it looked easy. Sometimes you see goalies, they stop everything but they’re all over the place … Jaro, that year, was just square to the puck. No rebounds. Always in the right position. It basically looked like he was warming up.
Halak ended the game with 53 saves, giving the Canadiens a 4-1 Game 6 victory. It left Boudreau short on answers for how his team could win Game 7.
The deciding game of the Capitals-Canadiens series would return to the Verizon Center in Washington, where a future Hab would make his series debut.
Karl Alzner, Washington Capitals defenceman: Tom Poti was healthy, he had been battling some stuff throughout the year. He was healthy and then he took a puck in the face. I played, me and (John) Carlson were partners that game. He played pretty good I thought. It was a good one.
I watched the first few games on TV. I just remember being frustrated, just watching the first little bit (of the series) just thinking ‘how is this happening?’ It just doesn’t make any sense. And then actually seeing it up close, it was one of those games where you just get frustrated because you’re throwing so much at somebody, at a goalie, at a team. You feel like you’re going to win every single game and nothing’s come from it.
Raby: Already, the day of the game, there was some tension, a little uneasiness because Capitals fans have seen this before. Maybe not to this extent where the team is, at least based on the regular season, so superior. But there was an uneasy feeling at the game that night.
The Canadiens scored first in Game 7, thanks to a goal from the injured Bergeron.
Bergeron: I actually watched it not so long ago. RDS put it on one night. It was a four-on-three power-play goal. I remember it pretty well. A pass from Scott Gomez across their triangle and it was a one-timer … above the goalie pad. It was nice.
A 1-0 lead wasn’t sufficient against a hungry Capitals team seeking an equalizer. But then, a Moore goal gave the Habs the breathing room they needed.
Moore: I do remember feeling not safe at all with the 1-0 lead. I think our line, we tried to play aggressively. I was a firm believer that we continued to do that even with a lead. Obviously make smart decisions, but definitely not sit back. I think that goal was a good example of that. We could’ve not tried to chase that puck down and just kept a defensive posture and we wouldn’t have gotten that extra goal that ended up being the winner.
Gionta: I believe Hal Gill made an unbelievable pass off the glass down the ice, almost an icing.
Lapierre: I remember taking the hit and then Dominic Moore takes the puck, I think it was low blocker, and that was it. That was the big goal.
We wanted to play simple hockey with no risk when a line like ours was on the ice. Hal Gill takes the puck, puts it on the glass. I knew exactly that I had to cheat a little bit to be first on the puck. I knew 100 per cent that it was going to get out. We get the puck and then we scored. That’s what I mean. The simplest play in hockey, but we were doing it all the time.
Moore: (Lapierre) went after it aggressively and I kind of followed him up and was able to get the good side of the post and get an important goal. And that was an incredible experience for us as a team and, obviously, personally for me for sure.
Martin: It was fitting that Dominic Moore scored. It was a line that was playing some really important minutes. Dominic Moore was a big part of our penalty killing units, for him to get that goal I think it just kind of rallied those teammates around him too.
The Capitals scored late in the third period to make things interesting, meaning the Habs would have to defend a 2-1 lead with over two minutes to play.
Lapierre: We just knew. It was over. There was no chance that we worked that hard doing everything we did during the first six games and take the lead, Game 7 on the road, it was 100 per cent sure that there’s nobody that was going to do a mistake or not sacrifice for the team.
It was a mix of passions, happiness, nervousness. There was so many feelings. I think everybody knew for sure that it was over.
Gionta: No, by no means.
I remember those (last) four, five minutes going by extremely slow. You’re in Washington. They’re all over you getting chances and we’re just kind of praying for the clock to run out.
Moore: I don’t think we believed really that we could do it until we had done it. And again, maybe (the goal) took some of the pressure off us. Obviously the game wasn’t over at that point.
Once the horn sounded, the upset was complete. The Montreal Canadiens were onto Round 2 to play the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, while the Capitals had to live with the disappointment of being upset and to endure yet another early playoff exit.
Raby: Here we go again. This team that had a history of playoff disappointment, of losing Game 7s on home ice.
Carlson: Obviously (Jaroslav) stood on his head pretty much every game of the series.
Cammalleri: It just felt great. You’re putting so much energy into these moments. You just feel a little bit of elation that you’re going to have some success. And then I think, pretty quickly, you start thinking about what comes next. We’re gonna have to rest and recover and get ready to do this all over again.
Gionta: I think as we started to build … Game 5, and then Game 6, and then you force a Game 7. That’s when the buzz really started around the city. Things really got amped and people were going nuts.
Gionta wasn’t exaggerating when he said the city was going nuts. As the Canadiens ended their first round series, fans took to the streets to celebrate the victory. What they didn’t know is that there were more celebrations to come…
