"It's unfortunate," said Glen Metropolit. "Kind of a delayed reaction by the ref. But what a great bunch of guys we have in that room. We battled back."
Whining about missed calls is for losers, and to the Bruins' credit, they didn't harp on referee Mike Leggo's slow-to-blow whistle when Reich tripped defenseman Andrei Markov in the Montreal zone.
Instead, they looked at the positives, which were many. Before Kovalev's goal, the Bruins killed seven Montreal power plays - including Shawn Thornton's double minor at 17:43 of the third. They outshot the Canadiens, 39-31, getting some traffic in front of goalie Carey Price, who stopped all 12 first-period shots when the Bruins were at their sharpest.
The Bruins now find themselves having to win four of the next five games, starting tonight at TD Banknorth Garden.
"I agree with him 100 percent," said coach Claude Julien when informed that Montreal counterpart Guy Carbonneau said the Bruins played their best game of the 10-showdown set. "There's no doubt we had a great effort tonight."
On the winning goal, forward Tomas Plekanec beat Metropolit on the draw in the Bruins' zone, using a move the Boston center had warned linesman Derek Amell about before he dropped the puck.
"I told [Amell] that he cheats all the time with his foot. Before [the linesman] drops the puck, he gets his foot in there," said Metropolit, demonstrating how Plekanec often plants his left skate in the circle to block the opposing center's stick. "So my stick gets caught in his skate. He got away with it, so oh, well."
Plekanec pulled the puck back along the boards to Markov, who then slid a pass back down the wall to Kovalev. As the No. 1 right wing loaded his stick, Thomas squared himself to the shot, thinking he had positioned himself to close the hole where he thought Kovalev was targeting: under his right arm. But Kovalev's shot deflected off Chara's stick and hopped over Thomas's left shoulder.
