CANADIENS

“Bruins forward Milan Lucic removed any doubt that he’s a thug masquerading as a hockey player.”

BOSTON — It was about half past midnight Thursday morning and the glowering, storeys-high mug of Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask staring down over Causeway Street somehow didn’t look as menacing as it had a few hours earlier.

Already, the 2014 Boston Bruins Stanley Cup Playoffs banners were coming down off the standards in front of and around TD Garden.

“They want ’em down right away,” the Garden crewman said, snipping the banner ties.

Your choice: this was civic cleanliness or the removal of a painful playoff reminder before daybreak, or outsmarting vandals and souvenir-hunters.

The ankle-deep pile of banners at the worker’s feet summed up this night: the big, bad Bruins were litter on the sidewalk, the NHL’s best team of the regular-season torn down in seven games by a Canadiens club that simply was the better, smarter squad head-to-head.

The 34th series between these cantankerous rivals ended with predictable bitterness and belligerence, a time-honoured handshake line dissolving into ugly expressions and at least one threat of physical violence.

To knock off the Bruins, the Canadiens played the game for which they are styled — a balanced attack of speed, an aggressive forecheck, grinding when necessary, all anchored by superior goaltending.

On paper, Boston was the better club, the favourite to advance to the Eastern Conference final. But as Canadiens goalie Carey Price has said more than once: “That’s why I’m glad we play the games on the ice.”

Much was said in Boston that the Habs’ confident demeanour following Game 6 was a lot of ‘false bravado’ that wouldn’t translate to Game 7 success.

Here’s the fact: this Canadiens team has never once not believed in itself, never getting too high after a win or too low after a loss. That wasn’t false bravado; anyone who’s been around these players knows it was soaring confidence.

The Bruins also had a wide edge in the arrogance department, something that’s a hallmark of their teams of recent vintage. That brewed as the series wore on and finally boiled over after the final siren as players formed the historically traditional single-file line, handshakes that can be thin on sincerity but acknowledge at least grudging respect of an opponent after hard-fought battle.

At game’s end, Bruins forward Milan Lucic removed any doubt he’s a thug masquerading as a hockey player. His vocal, strongarm bid to intimidate Canadiens forward Dale Weise and defenceman Alexei Emelin was as weak as Lucic’s performance on the ice during the series. He scored once, into an empty Montreal net, and had two assists. In Game 7, he didn’t have a single shot on goal.

His hollow work didn’t stop him from beating his chest like King Kong after hitting the Habs’ vacant net in Game 2 or from showboating with a biceps pump in the direction of P.K. Subban during Game 5.

Weise happily returned the gestures, thumping his chest to Lucic when he scored in Game 3, then flashing Lucic a sarcastic biceps pose during the Canadiens commanding 4-0 win in Game 6, as the two butted heads and taunts throughout the series.

Lucic would have been wiser to skip the handshake line altogether and explain and/or apologize for his absence later. He wouldn’t have been the first player unwilling to shake hands with opponents with whom he has sourly or viciously sparred.

TSN analyst and three-time Stanley Cup champion Aaron Ward, who’s done more than a few handshake lines both as victor and vanquished, confirmed with multiple sources after Game 7 that Lucic told Weise that he would “f---ing kill” Weise next season.

Lucic’s actions embarrassed his entire club, which is saying something when you consider that club includes Brad Marchand.

(The latter’s Game 7 faceoff sucker-punch to the jaw of the Canadiens’ Tomas Plekanec, after making sure a referee was occupied and the linesman was looking elsewhere, caught fire on the Internet Thursday.)

The Bruins’ general disrespect of the Canadiens was a thread that in some ways stitched the Habs together through seven games.

“Disrespect? I don’t know what they’re talking about, disrespect,” an exercised Lucic said. “Having a goal celebrations. … What kind of disrespect is that?”

Weise, who as a pre-Canadiens member of the Vancouver Canucks had his battles with Lucic, clearly had issues with the Bruins before the series began.

“I hated Boston before I got here,” he said. “Obviously, on Vancouver we didn’t like each other and it just grew as the series went on. (The Bruins) just have some guys that do some disrespectful things.

“Even in the handshake they had a couple guys, or sorry, just one, that couldn’t put it behind them and be a good winner. Milan Lucic had a few things to say to a couple guys.

“You look at a guy like Shawn Thornton, who has been around the league and he plays hard and he plays that role and he had good things to say to everybody. He lost with class and Milan Lucic just couldn’t do that. Well, I won’t get into what he said (but) it’s just poor. It’s a poor way to lose.”

Replied Lucic, who was angered Weise had mentioned the incident:

“It’s said on the ice so it’ll stay on the ice. So if he wants to be a baby about it, that’s. … He can make it public.”

Weise and the Canadiens are too busy looking forward to their Eastern Conference final against the Rangers to see what’s in their rearview, Lucic and the Bruins already almost out of sight.

But the scab on this series will still be fresh next October when these two enemies — that is not too strong a word — meet again.

Had Lucic distilled even a little of his strutting and his venom into offensive fuel, maybe TD Garden staff wouldn’t have been tearing down playoff banners under cover of darkness, watched by the building-sized Tuukka Rask whose masked face is surely next to go.