Fresh off a series victory over the Washington Capitals, the Montreal Canadiens flew into Pittsburgh for their Eastern Conference Semifinal matchup. The Habs had already knocked off the Presidents’ Trophy winners, but now they had to fend off the defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins. Back in Montreal, Habs fans were still in shock, in awe, and in full-on celebration mode over their team pulling off the first-round upset.
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“If you can win one why can’t you win four?”: The players look back at the 2010 Habs-Capitals series
Jay Baruchel, actor/Habs fan: [The playoffs] dog tails with summer. We’re a winter town and we’re locked up indoors for over half the year. The minute it gets above zero at the end of f**king February, there’s people out on the terraces. Us making it past that 82-game mark and still being alive in the cradle of professional sports in the city that’s experienced this religious ceremony 24 f**king times to fruition? Something happens, man. It becomes this electric chemical experience where the entire city, which never needs an excuse to be up all night anyway, f**king is.
Mathieu Darche, Canadiens forward: I walked down [to the Bell Centre] for games, we had those fan jams outside. I’d go there almost three hours before a game and the streets were already packed. You feel the energy in the crowd. You feel the energy of the city. You know it was the only thing that people talked about.
Glen Metropolit, Canadiens forward: I lived right downtown near the Bell Centre on Rene Levesque. I remember looking on my balcony and seeing basically all the roads shut down, riot police.
It was interesting to say the least.
Jay Farrar, former manager of McLean’s Pub: We were kind of a hotspot for journalists. But we were a hotspot for the fans too. Being out there, right on the corner of Ste. Catherine and Peel, where the heart of the celebrations were. It got pretty insane at times, and at times, not so fun either. It could’ve gotten a little out of control at points.
Allen McInnis, Montreal Gazette photographer: Those things really piss me off. I did the [celebrations after the Boston series victory] in ‘08, I think it was where they burned a bunch of police cars. That one was really, really aggressive and it had nothing to do with hockey. [Liquor stores] got trashed. They were smashing windows of any store, pulling the mannequins out. It wasn’t that they wanted to steal the dress, they were just using the mannequin to throw around. Just violence for violence.
[In 2010] there were a couple of guys, and one guy in particular, who would take the city trash can, empty it out in the middle of the street, and encourage people to throw shit at the cops. But he himself never threw anything at the cops. He was just an instigator. He really knew how to push people’s buttons. There were people that jumped on board, picked up all the garbage and started heaving it at the cops on his initiative. But he never took the risk.
Farrar: It wasn’t just one person dancing on tables, we didn’t allow anyone to dance on tables. It was too dangerous. But when everybody is dancing on the tables, there’s nothing we can do. We’re just going to have to wait and hope for the best. There was a couple of nights where the entire bar was standing, even my bartenders and waitresses, standing up on the bar. People were just partying, spraying beer everywhere. It was really crazy. It was like we were in the locker room afterwards.
McInnis: In the beginning, most of it was just partying. By the time I got from Rene Levesque to Ste. Catherine Street, it had changed. Rene Levesque [had] the girls hanging out of the car windows, screaming or seated on the door with the window down holding onto to the hood in their Habs jersey. The classic kind of shit, you know. But by Ste. Catherine, it got a bit different. There was a nasty element there. It had nothing to do with hockey, this is an excuse to go and break shit.
The [riot police] were slow to get there, even though some of them were there already before the game ended because of ‘08. There was a bit of a heavy police presence, but I found them pretty slow to get into formation and break it up. But it’s easy for me to criticize.
Farrar: I think there were people jumping on the city bus … windows broken, police cars damaged. I’m not sure, that year, how much of that happened [compared to 2008]. Every time it does happen in the second round, third round, I just find it funny how people say ‘Oh, those are not Habs fans that are doing that.’ It’s hilarious to me every time. I hear it on the radio all the time. I hear people saying ‘those are not Montreal Canadiens fans doing that. Those are people who come out purposefully to come and cause trouble and wear masks, and anarchists. And I’m like, no, no, a lot of people dancing on that bus were having a couple of drinks at the bar, beforehand. I saw them there. They were cheering on, they were in their Habs jerseys, and they get out of control because they’re drunk. Call it like we see it, you know? We have crazy hockey fans in this city and they have a tendency to over-celebrate.
Eric Engels, Habs beat writer for Sportsnet: There was a fever in the city. It had come to a fever pitch. It was really exciting.
Some fans started experiencing emotions they hadn’t felt since the team’s last Stanley Cup in 1993, another unexpected victory.
Dominic Moore, Canadiens forward: One of the memories I had … I don’t know if he was like a local musician or an artist. I didn’t know him before I saw his video. But he had made kind of a music video on our run and it was called “Feels Like 93”. You may have seen it.
Annakin Slayd, rapper/actor: It’s funny now because when you think about, at that time, ‘93 to me was the good old days. That was such a pivotal Cup win for me. I was alive for ‘86 but I was too young to be able to celebrate. Then ‘93 came along and I was in junior high. Those are the impressionable years. Just having … just feeling the energy in the city at that time. Just being able to celebrate that win had such a mark on me as a young adult, I guess.
Farrar (Annakin’s brother): I used to play the song at the pub, I debuted the video at the pub. I would play it before the game and it would get people so hyped, and then people just wanted me to play it over and over on loop after the game.
Slayd: The first version of “Feels Like ‘93”, which was sort of lower on the radar, was in 2008 when the Habs won the Eastern Conference regular season. They got us the team with Kovalev, Koivu, Plekanec … I had recently done a version that did pretty well locally. But in 2010, when I re-upped it a second time right after the (Habs) beat the Capitals, it went to a whole other level.
Moore: It was an incredible montage video to a song that I think this guy put together. And it gave me chills. It had all the history of the Canadiens’ run in ‘93 and it was intertwined with some of the new memories we were making as a team that spring. And my goal was a big part of that video that they made, the series-clinching goal in the first round. It gave me chills, again, to feel like you’re part of Canadiens history.
Slayd: Now you look at those days, 2010-2014, those are the good old days now. I didn’t even realize at the time that we were in the middle of a period that wasn’t going to last forever obviously. Now, 10 years ago, it feels so long ago.
Two days after defeating the Capitals in Washington, the puck dropped for Game 1 of the Canadiens-Penguins series. The Habs were once again pegged as underdogs. Understandably against a team who had the Stanley Cup Finals in the last two seasons. But not everyone felt that way.
James Duthie, TSN host/broadcaster: I love hot goalies in the playoffs. What Halak was doing…I loved that in a playoff series with an underdog. Number two thing that I base things on? A team that has gone two years in a row. That was right after the Penguins went back-to-back to the final, right? It’s sort of become my philosophy that it’s really hard to do that another time. Somewhere along the way you’re going to stumble, when you’ve had two long years like that. The third thing, and probably the most important thing is, as a host we try to create interesting television and I’m going to guess that all the other guys picked Pittsburgh. That would’ve been my decisive factor. It’s really boring TV when everybody picks the same team and as the host, the analysts have more credibility on the line.
If you just take Pittsburgh and you lose, nobody really remembers. But if you pick an upset people remember more…I’ve probably been wrong about 75 per cent of my predictions over the years. But the fact that (someone) remembers one from 2010 validates everything that I’ve ever done.
Michael Cammalleri, Canadiens forward: I felt really energized by that first series and was kind of excited to get on to the next one. I think, looking back at the first series, I think we had a little more luck and [Halak] had to stand on his head a little more than he did against Pittsburgh.
“You got nothing and you ain’t gonna get nothing.”
Marc-Andre Bergeron, Canadiens defenceman: It felt like it was going to be our most difficult series. I remember doing a scouting meeting before every round that I’ve done throughout my career in the playoffs. Talking about all the players that they have. It was a pretty stacked lineup, pretty full. You just wonder how you’re going to find a way to match them up. We were playing extremely well as a team, and then Halak was making the difference when he needed to.
Brian Gionta, Canadiens forward: We had momentum. We had more of a confidence to us.
Maxim Lapierre, Canadiens forward: It’s a weird feeling. Because you start the first round as an underdog. Then when you beat a team like Washington, I don’t know if you’re an underdog anymore. You know that the team you’re playing now is going to take you very seriously, so it’s a different approach for Round 2. We just played a great team, but now we’re playing a great team that knows how to win.
Tomas Plekanec, Canadiens forward: We were ready to go for another challenge. Obviously, everybody knew that we weren’t the ones who were supposed to make it, who were supposed to win that series. At the end of the day … it’s kind of different when you go as an underdog into a series. But after the series that we won against Washington, everybody was kind of like ‘maybe these guys have something going on?’
No one knew at the time that the series would go the distance. No one knew at the time that Habs’ defenceman Andrei Markov would only last a little over five minutes in that series after taking a hit from Penguins forward Matt Cooke.
Plekanec: Every year, he meant so much to the team. He made the team better. Guys around him better. The linemates better. The D-partners better. He was one of the best defencemen I played with in Montreal over the years. Obviously, it was a big loss for us.
Engels: He had already been through a couple of major injuries so there were lingering questions, not just about that series, but about what the future held for him. Whether or not he’d be the same player again. Those are questions that lingered.
Darche: He’s our quarterback. He was our best defenceman. My three years in Montreal, I might have played 30 games with Marky.
When you lose your top defenceman, it affects you. Because these guys log 25-30 minutes, especially in the playoffs. So, it’s definitely a factor.
The Russian rearguard would later need surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. That meant the team would have to rely on the rest of their defensive corps to pick up the slack for the remainder of the playoffs, including a young defenceman by the name of P.K. Subban. The team’s second-round pick in 2007 was thrust into the spotlight during the 2010 Playoffs.
Jacques Martin, head coach: When he got an opportunity to play, he had confidence in his skill. Played very well. He stepped up in there and gave us some great games.
Because of his skill level, he was able to step in and do a real good job for us.
Cammalleri: I think his play is underrated in that series. He was playing heads up against [Sidney] Crosby a lot of the time with Hal Gill.
Darche: Nothing fazes him. He comes in as a rookie, first year professional. Right away he was one of our best defencemen. There were a lot of things that went right.
The bigger the stage, the better he plays. Even during the season, he played two games against [Philadelphia]. One in [Philly], one at home. I remember in his first game, we’re at home. Chris Pronger goes to run in. He ducks, he misses him. First game in the NHL. Pronger was a dirty player too. Hall of Famer. [Subban] turns around and says, ‘Suck on that, Prongs’. Right away, he had that confidence. I’m a big P.K. fan.
Sure enough, Subban scored the first goal of the series and the very first of his NHL career.
The Penguins would tie the game four minutes later and eventually took the lead. They’d go on to win Game 1 by a score of 6-3. The Pens even chased Habs goalie Jaroslav Halak from goal, leaving Jacques Martin to play Carey Price in relief.
The team’s first-round draft choice from 2005 did see some time in between the pipes that post-season, but he was still finding his footing in the National Hockey League. He began the season as the team’s starting goalie, but lost his number-one role to Halak halfway through the year.
Martin: Carey Price’s attitude was outstanding. Even when Jaroslav Halak played, he supported his teammate and he was very encouraging. And I think he gained a lot of respect from his teammates as well, [for] the way he handled the situation. He just recognized the other player was playing outstanding.
Cammalleri: It was a tough time for Carey. Carey’s personality, as we all know, he comes off as understated and calm. Almost laissez-faire is how people see him with his demeanour and his body language. But he’s an extremely competitive, proud human being. You know, he wanted to be the guy, as he should. And he did a good job carrying himself and supporting the team, but that was a challenging time for him.
Metropolit: I knew Price was the future.
I remember just having confidence in both guys. Jaro’s a great guy, but Carey’s a future Hall of Famer. I knew he was on his way. He was the guy. You don’t worry about the goaltender, you just go play. I mean, shit. Everyone has a job.
Game 2 of the Canadiens-Penguins series was in Pittsburgh, but it went more favourably for the visiting team. The Habs and Pens were tied at a goal apiece after the opening 20 minutes. The eventual game-winning goal came from Cammalleri, who needed some hand-eye coordination to beat Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
Cammalleri: P.K. shot it. It was a power-play goal. It was kind of coming to the corner. It either hit the goalie or the defenceman in front of the net. It came right out at me and I just kind of reacted with my foot, and then it kind of just was sitting in the air. I just batted it in.
Cammalleri would end the game with a second goal, giving the Canadiens a 3-1 victory over the Penguins in Game 2. The series was tied 1-1 and was making its way back to Montreal for Games 3 and 4.
Not only did the Habs achieve a series split, they had managed to frustrate one of the best players in the world in Sidney Crosby. After a two-assist performance in Game 1, he was held off the scoresheet in Game 2. The Nova Scotian wouldn’t score his first of the series until Game 6.
Moore: I can’t remember who was matched up against Sid’s line in that series, but I think it was [Scott] Gomez. And, you know, he played really well against them. But obviously on the road, you can always get those matchups. And I think whoever was on the ice against Malkin and Crosby did a pretty thorough job.
Darche: Gill and [Josh] Gorges were stopping as many shots as Jaro was. They were doing an unbelievable job.
Martin: We knew we couldn’t get into a shootout, a wide-open game against both Washington or Pittsburgh as a matter of fact. They had a lot more firepower than us. I think it was … really working within our strength. Our goaltending was one of our strengths, our special teams, both our power play and penalty kill. If we can outplay them on those special teams, we’re [helping] ourselves, we’re helping the percentage of winning hockey games. If we could contain players like Crosby and [Evgeni] Malkin, that would give us a good chance to win.
We doubled up a lot. We had great support. Our team game without the puck was really excellent. That’s what really helped. I remember in the series, Hal Gill had played — and won a Cup — with the Penguins. I think he was a big help in helping us prepare for that team. The way he played, he didn’t have the offensive power of some other defencemen, but he was good defensively. He was big. He had a long reach. Blocked a lot of shots. It was amazing.
Cammalleri: We’re playing Pittsburgh at home so it had to be Game 3 or 4. I’m thinking it’s Game 3. [Subban]’s brand new to the NHL. And Crosby comes through the neutral zone and P.K. kind of steps on him in the neutral zone and jams him, and jams him. And then Crosby goes offside. The whistle blows and I’m backchecking, so I’m like right there, within a couple feet. P.K. says to Crosby, ‘You got nothing and you ain’t gonna get nothing.’
I remember that moment looking at [P.K], looking at Sid. Sid was kind of looking at him, confused, like, ‘Is this guy talking to me?’ I remember thinking, ‘wow, like [P.K.] actually believes it. He actually is gonna play this guy, heads up, like this.’ I remember feeling at that moment, like, this guy’s a special player. This would be an interesting matchup in this series.
Gionta: We just, we never gave up and we didn’t allow for them to close us out in that series. We hung around and we found our groove late in that series.
The Canadiens and Penguins would be tied at two games apiece after four games. Pittsburgh would eventually win Game 5 at home, meaning for the second consecutive series the Canadiens needed to stave off elimination with a Game 6 victory at the Bell Centre. The Habs were ready to take the ice, but not before receiving well-wishes from one of the team’s greatest legends.
Metropolit: I remember just being intimidated by this guy who’d always walk into his seat, knowing who he was. Jean Beliveau. [I remember] before every game just being in awe. I remember just [doing] my preparation while we’re getting revved up [before Game 6].
He’s just coming up to me just saying “You guys got this. You guys can do this.” And he gave me a fist pump and I’m like ‘Yup, we got it.” I don’t remember which game it was, but now looking at that clip I want to go play hockey. I want to go battle, I want to win that game.
“You couldn’t hear each other talk on the bench.”
Engels: About 10 minutes before that happened, I was in the bathroom and Jean Beliveau walked in. I’m just washing my hands after doing my business and I say ‘how are you feeling about tonight, Jean?’ He goes ‘I’m nervous, I’m nervous!” I go ‘Okay … you think they’re going to win?’ He’s like ‘I really want the boys to win. I think they’re going to win.’ Then I said, ‘Well, enjoy the game. I hope you really enjoy it and have a great time’. He said, ‘You too’.
He left the bathroom and I went upstairs, right away, and he went straight to the tunnel and had that moment with Metropolit. I remember that very distinctly because it was one of the last times I had interacted with Jean Beliveau.
Bergeron: I think it’s a great way of doing things. To me, it’s a great mark of respect for the alumni to let them [be] around the team. Each player will react differently seeing alumni, but at the end of the day I think it’s a plus that we had the chance to see them and have them around.
The Canadiens scored first thanks to Cammalleri, but then allowed two goals from the Penguins. Cammalleri, however, would bring the score back to 2-2 midway through the second period. His 11th goal of the playoffs — and second of the game — led to a standing ovation from fans.
Engels: We had a TV timeout. I had never heard the Bell Centre so loud in my life. It was mayhem. The press box was literally shaking. It was the craziest experience I’d ever had at a hockey game. I had never heard anything like that. It was an ovation that went on for probably about 10 minutes. It went from before the commercial break, all the way through the commercial break, then got louder and louder, and louder. It was a really crazy moment.
Darche: You couldn’t hear each other talk on the bench.
Cammalleri: So many Canadians can resonate with it. You grow up playing hockey as a kid and you grow up dreaming of playing [in the] NHL. Your dreams aren’t a building with 8000 people in it on a Tuesday night and — with no disrespect — in some city in Middle America. It’s just not what you’re dreaming of. You know, you’re dreaming of being a Montreal Canadien or a Toronto Maple Leaf, or wherever it is, and playing in front of those types of crowds and feeling like the whole world’s eyes are on you and your team.
Playing as a Montreal Canadien in the playoffs is all about you. You feel like you’re playing in the centre of the universe. It’s like being on vacation in New York City. You feel like, well, I’m in the centre of the universe, you’re walking around the streets in New York City. Playing hockey in Montreal in a playoff game, you literally feel like you’re playing in the centre of the universe.
Jaroslav Spacek’s first of the series gave the Habs a 3-2 lead in the third, but the team needed an insurance marker to preserve a victory over the Penguins in Game 6. That goal, which would later serve as a game-winner, came from Maxim Lapierre.
Lapierre: I always think about that goal because I don’t know what happened. I became very confident on that one specific play with the puck. I did a nice play on the wall with [Alex] Goligoski on my back. Got into traffic in front of the net and probably scored one of the biggest goals of my career, right there at home. I still remember how loud that building was. It was probably the loudest I had heard the Bell Centre. It was loud for a long time. It just felt like a dream. It felt unreal to score that big goal knowing how important that was.
And then you see that they made the commercial … History Will Be Made, hometown hero. That’s the type of video you watch and have goosebumps.
Moore: And again, Jaro was special in some of those games with the firepower that [Pittsburgh] had. Some of the power-play looks that they got. I recall him just totally standing on his head some of those games in Pittsburgh.
The Penguins would strike back with a goal after Lapierre’s marker, but it wasn’t enough. The Habs survived another elimination game and forced another Game 7.
Darche: I still remember an hour, an hour and a half, after the game leaving the Bell Centre. People were outside the garage almost jumping on your car. It was crazy. Being a Montreal kid for me, it was awesome. I grew up in Montreal. To live that, in my hometown, it was just unbelievable.
It was a game that every Habs fan, no matter where they were, would stop at nothing to watch.
Baruchel: I remember being in a hotel room in Vancouver because I was on a press tour. I think it was for ‘The Trotsky’. I was doing an interview day, press junket thing at a hotel in Vancouver. I had asked if the TV could be brought in. So, the end of my last interview of the day overlapped with the beginning of the first period. I asked the reporter to sit with their back to the TV so that I could watch the game as I was answering questions. Then the reporter left, I continued the game.
The Habs were in control for most of the contest, scoring the game’s first four goals. Gionta opened the scoring, before Moore, Cammalleri, and Travis Moen added to the Canadiens’ advantage.
Gionta: We controlled, for the most part, that first period. We were all over them.
Darche: You’re Game 7 at home, the other team scores first, you’re like, ‘Oh shit’. And then Halak played well.
Moore: I felt Jaro was incredible. But we also took, and stole, the momentum.
Engels: I remember Travis Moen skating around Sergei Gonchar like he wasn’t even there.
If you watch that goal. He beats Gonchar to the outside. It was not a Game 7 effort by any means. [Pittsburgh] was frustrated. I don’t want to say they quit, because they didn’t quit. They just felt like all the bounces were going against them and they let it demoralize them.
Farrar: “What is going on in Pennsylvania?”
The Penguins would score twice in the second period to cut Montreal’s lead in half.
Gionta: And we took a penalty and went into the third period short-handed in a 4-2 game. [If] they score there, now, all of a sudden, it’s a completely different game, 18-19 minutes left in the third period. One-goal game.
In that part, it got desperate. But, yeah, we came out strong.
Gionta would supply the dagger in the third period of Game 7.
Gionta: I had a two-goal game. One scored early on, first couple of shifts of the game from Subban. Kind of redirected [into the net]. Then later on in that game, with a one-timer.
Once the final buzzer sounded, the Canadiens, once again, had won a Game 7 on the road. They would meet the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference Finals, but there was some celebrating to be had by the Habs after knocking off Pittsburgh.
Engels: That Game 7 is one of the worst Game 7s I’ve ever seen a team play. Especially a team that had just won the Stanley Cup. [The Penguins] were terrible. They played terrible.
Plekanec: Winning two Game 7s on the road against the teams that had, probably, the best players in the world … it was really something special to be part of.
When we won the Game 7 in Pittsburgh. The celebration in the dressing room. There was everybody from the organization. I remember Geoff Molson was there and everybody was celebrating with us after the game. We were so excited and so happy. Everybody was enjoying that moment.
The Montreal fans, once again, took to the streets to celebrate back home. The Canadiens would meet another a team with a Cinderella story of their own in the Eastern Conference finals.
(Yes, fans are burning a cutout of Sidney Crosby’s head. The same player who won his country a gold medal in the Olympics in hockey four months prior.)
