Hackett, Canadiens put stop to roll

[ Game summary ]

By Jim McCabe, Globe Staff, 12/11/2002

e wasn't around for Ken Dryden's playoff thievery or that nightmare of ''too many men on the ice,'' so spare him the litany of historical heartache. Not even last spring's playoff ouster by Montreal, which he was witness to, makes Mike Knuble shake his head.

''It's not a hex or anything. It isn't voodoo,'' said the Bruins forward last night, though what had unfolded at the FleetCenter would make faithful followers of the Black 'n Gold nod their heads in unison. They have seen this act before: Good Boston team on a roll meets Montreal team in a slide, but Canadiens get a great goaltending effort and win.

The latest installment - with Jeff Hackett playing the heroic goaltender - was a 4-2 Montreal decision that snapped Boston's three-game winning streak, a triumph in front of 15,219 fans who can remember last season when the top-seeded Bruins were ousted by the eighth-seeded Canadiens in Round 1 of the NHL playoffs. These are many of the same folks who look at games with Montreal as a barometer of how things are going for the Bruins, and all too often they have ended poorly.

It mattered little that the Bruins came into the game with an NHL-best 42 points and that Montreal had been 2-6 of late. It was just Boston's fifth loss in 28 games, and while the fact it came at the hands of the dreaded Canadiens seemed to deflate the home crowd, the Bruins knew there was no mystery to the outcome.

''We came out flat,'' said Boston defenseman Bryan Berard. ''You can't give up four goals and expect to come back against a team like that, even though we have confidence in ourselves.''

Yet, that's exactly what happened, the Canadiens dominating from the outset with ferocious forechecking that stifled Boston's attack. Time after time, the Bruins were stopped coming out of their end, Montreal's work in the neutral zone stifling them. ''We had,'' conceded Berard, ''some problems at our blue line and turned the puck over too many times.''

The pressure led to the first goal of the game - Andreas Dackell outbattling Joe Thornton for the puck in the left corner and centering to Jan Bulis, who stuffed it past John Grahame. It came on Montreal's third shot and just 5:10 into the contest, but the Bruins goaltender played superbly for the rest of the first period and kept his team in it.

Unfortunately for him, the team did not come to life, as it had in recent games. Instead, Montreal took it to Boston in the second period, scoring three times in the first 10:18 to leave Boston coach Robbie Ftorek shaking his head. The team's fourth game in six days was going poorly, but he wasn't about to blame fatigue.

''No, I don't think so. Possibly, but I don't think so,'' said Ftorek, whose team had beaten the Canadiens, 4-2, in Boston Nov. 29. ''They just came out and got the jump on us.''

Most especially in that middle period. Yanic Perreault scored his 12th of the year at 3:06, getting behind the Bruin defensive tandem of Hal Gill and Jonathan Girard to gather a loose puck and go in untouched on Grahame. It wouldn't be the last time Grahame would feel helpless.

At 6:42, Oleg Petrov watched Richard Zednik and Saku Koivu produce some masterful passing, then skated toward the front of the net. Taking a perfect feed from Koivu, Petrov found himself staring down Grahame, not a Bruin defender to worry about. Petrov got Grahame to commit, then put home his fifth of the year, which was followed at 10:18 by Randy McKay's power-play score. They may lead the NHL in points, but being down, 4-0, to the Canadiens is reason for crowd reaction and the Bruins heard it.

''They played well, but we didn't play very well,'' said Ftorek, whose team had bounced back from sluggish starts in recent games.

Knuble got himself into the thick of the attempted comeback. He worked hard in the left corner and centered a pass. Thornton showed off baseball skills, backhanding the puck in mid-air past Hackett at 10:53 for his 15th goal of the year. Then, at 19:16, Knuble positioned himself in front of Hackett and got credit for his fifth of the year when Berard's blast from the point deflected in off his leg.

The four-goal deficit had been sliced in half and with 20 minutes to play, the FleetCenter crowd braced for a dramatic comeback. Instead, it got another chapter in heartache against Montreal, with Hackett in a starring role. Boston outshot Montreal, 14-4, in the third but Hackett (31 saves) turned them all aside, frustrating a Bruins team that had been flying high.

''We came back, but time ran out,'' said Knuble. ''But if we had a series with them, we'd be very confident.''

He was speaking for his teammates. Bruins fans, many of them history majors, might think otherwise.

This story ran on page E1 of the Boston Globe on 12/11/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.