Montreal comfortable with underdog status in playoffs

The Montreal Canadiens were significant underdogs against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

After dispatching Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and company — a roster with the seventh-best record in regular season, 15 points ahead of them in the standings — in the qualifying round, the Canadiens are in the same boat heading into a first-round playoff matchup with the Philadelphia Flyers.

And that’s fine with Montreal, the last entry in the league’s 24team restart to its pandemicdelayed season, one few expected to still be inside the Toronto bubble as the calendar approaches mid-August.

“We’re going to be the underdogs in any series we’re in,” Canadiens winger Dale Weise said. “We’re very comfortable in that position. No surprise. We were the last team that got accepted into this.

“We’re very comfortable with that and we’re very confident in our abilities.” As they should be. The Canadiens shut down the Penguins and their stars with a commitment to team defence, timely scoring and some exceptional goaltending from Carey Price to close Pittsburgh out 3-1 in the best-of-five play-in round.

Montreal’s blue-line corps led by Shea Weber, Jeff Petry and Ben Chiarot was outstanding, limiting the likes of Crosby and

Malkin, while the club also got important contributions from a pair of 20 year olds down the middle in Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Nick Suzuki.

“We don’t want to change anything from what we (did) against Pittsburgh,” said fellow Canadiens centre Phillip Danault. “We played really good, we played confident. We’ve got to stay confident. We know Philly ’s got more depth. They’ve got four really good lines and their defencemen are a little more physical.

“But they’re not perfect, so we’ve got a chance.”

While the Flyers aren’t perfect — every team has flaws — they began the round-robin portion of the restart as the fourthranked of four teams looking to secure the top seed in the Eastern Conference. They achieved that goal in impressive fashion, beating the Boston Bruins, Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning by a combined 11-3 score line.