MTL vs PHI

MONTREAL - It’s very rare after a playoff game to hear both sides speak positively about what took place on the ice, but that’s exactly what happened Saturday night after the Philadelphia Flyers grabbed home-ice advantage in the series with an entertaining 4-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in their Eastern Conference semi-final.

The Flyers are obviously happy because they got the split in Montreal they came here looking for. But in the grand scheme of things, what transpired at the Bell Centre may be more beneficial to the Canadiens than it was to the Flyers.

Flyers head coach John Stevens recognized that his team won the game because Martin Biron was in top form in the Philadelphia net, stopping 34 shots.

“I knew Montreal would play better. Marty was probably going to have to be our best player, and he was,” Stevens said. “It’s a gutsy effort by our team.”

Obviously no one likes to lose, but Saturday’s game was littered with so many positives it could almost be viewed as a moral victory for the Canadiens because it marked the first time since Game 1 of their series against the Boston Bruins that Montreal looked like the team that led the league in both power play efficiency and goals scored in the regular season.

The only things missing were the goals.

“I think in the third period we had three or four chances where we missed open nets,” Habs coach Guy Carbonneau said. “Biron had no chance, we just missed.”

Montreal swarmed Biron’s net time and again throughout the game, and even though the power play only scored once, it finally looked as dangerous as it did in the regular season.

On one man advantage late in the second period, Andrei Markov shot wide with an empty net in front of him on the Canadiens patented back door play, then he was stopped with a brilliant pad save by Biron in the exact same situation 45 seconds later. The rebound on that last chance came out to Tomas Plekanec in front, again with an open net to shoot at, but even Biron admitted afterward that he was lucky Plekanec shot the puck right into his glove.

Another power play chance in the third period, with Montreal down a goal, saw Christopher Higgins ring one off the post - again with an open net to shoot at - to cap a tic-tac-toe passing play with Markov and Sergei Kostitsyn. About 90 seconds later, Andrei Kostitsyn was alone in front of Biron, made his move and shot the puck just wide.

In those two power plays alone, Montreal probably generated more quality scoring chances than it had in its previous 35 chances in the post-season.

“We did a lot of good things with the puck in the offensive zone and on the power play,” Plekanec said. “It’s just a question of a little luck and maybe being a little harder and tougher around the net to get those rebounds and put it in.”

Plekanec is particularly snake-bitten in these playoffs, with Biron also stopping him on a breakaway late in the second period with a nice glove save, and he says frustration is starting to set in. He gave what had to be the quote of the year during the first round series with the Bruins when he proclaimed he was “playing like a little girl,” but that sentiment showed just how critical Plekanec can be when it comes to his own play.

“Tomas is a guy who takes everything to heart. He’s very serious about the game and the way he plays definitely affects his mood off the ice,” said Higgins, who has played with Plekanec both in the NHL and the minors since 2003. “He’s playing well but we just want those goals to start going in for him, because when he’s playing with confidence he’s a hell of a player.”

Saturday night’s game was one of those rare occasions the shot totals were truly indicative of how the game was played. The Canadiens outshot the Flyers 36-23, but that only tells half the story. Montreal also missed the net a whopping 21 times, while another 23 shots were blocked by the Flyers. That means the Canadiens threw 80 shots in the direction of the Flyers net, while Philadelphia countered with only 53.

Carbonneau spoke Saturday morning, prior to Game 2, about how a young team like his sometimes needs a setback to buckle down and focus.

In that sense, if a loss can ever be beneficial, we saw a perfect example of it Saturday night for the Canadiens.