The Bruins never recovered, dropping Game 1, 4-1, before 21,273 at Bell Centre to a determined Montreal club that oozed all the elements - speed, skill, grit, airtight checking - of a Cup-ready club.
"I don't think we played well," said Bruins coach Claude Julien. "That was the bottom line."
The Canadiens won all eight regular-season meetings, but last night's victory might have been their most complete. They overpowered the Bruins physically, outhitting Boston, 37-25. They won puck battles and used their speed to stay a skate's length ahead of the Bruins. They turned the Boston forwards into peashooters. And they used their home crowd to their advantage.
After the opening faceoff, with the din still rattling in the Boston zone, defenseman Patrice Brisebois wound up for a shot at the right point. Aaron Ward stepped in front of Thomas, blocking the netminder's sight lines.
"The crowd's so loud, he couldn't hear me yell, 'screen,' " said Thomas. "So I never saw the puck until he stuck his foot out."
The puck skimmed off Ward, changed speeds, and caught Thomas off guard. The rebound hopped out front, and Andrew Ference, who had gone too far up the ice, wasn't in position to defend Sergei Kostitsyn, who planted himself in the slot. Once Thomas booted the puck to Kostitsyn, the forward had an easy tap-in 34 seconds into the game to give Montreal a 1-0 lead.
The defensive errors continued several shifts later when Dennis Wideman, reunited with Zdeno Chara, tried to clear the puck from behind his net. Wideman, drifting to Thomas's right, couldn't tell which post Chara was stationed at. Wideman, who looked jittery at the start ("Obviously, a little bit of nerves early," he acknowledged), reversed the puck with a hard rim along the boards in case Chara was at the far post.
"He was on the strong post," said Wideman with regret, "and it went right by him."
