CHASING THE CUP
Top dogs, underdogs and more
The Canadiens and New York Rangers are headed back to Montreal with their playoff series tied 2-2.
Game 5 Thursday night at the Bell Centre would be a good time for Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty to step up.
Big time.
The Rangers evened the bestof-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final with a 2-1 win Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.
And for the fourth straight game, Pacioretty didn’t score a goal and he has only one assist in the series.
Tuesday night, the captain had two shots on goal, two hits and was minus-1.
He was on the ice for the winning goal by Steve Nash 4:28 into the second period and didn’t look good on it.
Jeff Petry tried to clear the puck out of the zone high off the glass, but it was gloved down by the Rangers’ Ryan McDonagh at the blue-line.
Pacioretty lunged to poke check the puck rather than playing the man and then did a skate-by, going outside the zone while McDonagh fed the puck down low to Nash in the corner. Nash then cut to the net and beat goalie Carey Price through the five-hole on the backhand.
“I poked it to Petey and he flipped it,” Pacioretty explained after the game.
“I think when he flipped it, I was not sure where the puck was. I thought it was bouncing out of the zone. I think he gloved it down and Nash got lost behind our D. I’m not sure if he meant to pass it or just put it on net.
“But that’s what they do very often is they anticipate getting behind our D and getting behind even the net a lot of times and anticipate turnovers in their end and try and throw it behind the net, and that was an example of that.”
It was also an example of how important it is for a defender to stop and check his man rather than skate past him.
When asked to rate his game, Pacioretty said: “It wasn’t my best. But it’s one game at a time, looking to get better.”
Game 5 would be a very good place to start.
Coach Claude Julien mixed up his lines in the second period, creating what looked like a new No. 1 line with Alex Galchenyuk at centre between Artturi Lehkonen and Alexander Radulov, while Pacioretty was with Phillip Danault and Andrew Shaw.
“Trying to get sparks going,” Pacioretty said about the shakeup.
“I think you’re looking a little bit too much into it.”
Pacioretty silenced his critics with a very strong regular season during his second year as captain of the Canadiens. But they will start getting loud again now and Pacioretty is the only one who can silence them.
If Pacioretty’s not scoring, the six-foot-two, 215-pounder needs to start throwing his weight around more in what has been a very physical series. Four games in, Pacioretty has only nine hits, while five-foot-nine, 160-pound Paul Byron has a team-leading 17, followed by Steve Ott and Alexander Radulov with 14 each.
Radulov is also producing offensively, picking up an assist on Torrey Mitchell’s goal Tuesday to give him six points, including two goals, in four games.
When asked about Pacioretty’s performance in French, Julien said the captain is a good player who is capable of bringing a lot to the team, but other than that the coach would keep it internal.