MTL vs BOS

MONTREAL - Montreal Canadiens president Pierre Boivin knows exactly what has to happen if his club hopes to advance to the second round of the playoffs.

Near the beginning of Montreal’s morning skate this morning in preparation for tonight’s Game 7 showdown with the Boston Bruins, Alex Kovalev was sitting on the bench attending to his stick while his teammates took a few warm-up laps around the rink, and he was chatting with Boivin at the same time.

Suddenly, Kovalev must have said something very funny, because Boivin burst into laughter, and then proceeded to walk behind Kovalev and give his shoulders an impromptu massage. Boivin then took the blade of Kovalev’s stick and gave it a kiss.

Whether or not that will in fact be the kiss of death remains to be seen, but Boivin surely knows that Kovalev needs to be the best player on the ice tonight if the Canadiens have any hope of winning the game.

Forgettable Game 6

In any case, the kiss on the stick couldn’t possible make Kovalev any worse than he was in Game 6.

Kovalev was perhaps the worst player on the ice in Boston on Saturday, finishing at minus-3 as he was on for the Bruins’ last three goals. Habs coach Guy Carbonneau didn’t mention Kovalev by name following the game, but it was clear who he meant when he said, “Our best players need to be our best players.”

In fact, since scoring the overtime winner of Game 2, Kovalev has been far from Montreal’s best player except for one sequence in the first period of Game 5.

However, that sequence was pretty telling about how Kovalev operates.

On that play, Kovalev was nearly decapitated by Bruins captain Zdeno Chara for the umpteenth time in the series, losing his helmet in the process. After giving Chara a few un-penalized cross-checks, Kovalev re-grouped, grabbed the puck, entered the Bruins zone, dropped the puck to Roman Hamrlik and headed for the net. He then caught a soft Patrice Brisebois shot, put the puck down and scored on a backhand.

Anger is fuel

It was an extraordinary goal, but Kovalev hasn’t had another moment that comes to close that ever since.

What the play shows about Kovalev’s personality, however, is that he performs at his best when he is angry, when he feels he’s being slighted in some way.

That’s exactly how he must feel heading into Game 7, and his 5-0 career record in these situations attests to how Kovalev has historically been able to rise to the occasion.

Whether he can do it again tonight will go a long way to determining whether the Canadiens advance.

'I'm going to learn:' Carbonneau

Another person who needs to bring his all tonight for the Canadiens won’t even be in uniform. Guy Carbonneau, to be blunt, has been receiving a lesson in coaching from his Bruins counterpart Claude Julien.

He practically admitted as much Monday morning, just hours before the biggest game of his brief coaching career.

“I’m a young kid starting a career and I’m going against guys that sometimes have a lifetime of experience, so it’s fun to learn,” Carbonneau said of his match-up with Julien.

“I find it interesting because this is a job where you always have to go to school ... This is my first playoffs as a coach, and whatever happens tonight, I’m going to learn from it.”

Luck on Habs’ side?

One thing he has already learned is how to manage his luck.

Carbonneau grinned Monday when asked if he would be wearing his lucky tie tonight, and he noted that he had already picked it out last night.

The flamboyant Hermès tie with the psychedelic colours has a 2-0 record since Carbonneau received it as a birthday gift from his wife, with the coach wearing it in Game 1 of the Bruins series and also the night the Canadiens clinched a playoff berth.

So between Boivin’s kiss and Carbonneau’s tie, luck may be on the side of the Canadiens, even if momentum isn’t.