*Photo from The Athletic*
Montreal leads series 3-2
One more win. If the Montreal Canadiens can win one more game, they will continue their cinderella playoff run with a Stanley cup final appearance. Cole Caufield scored, Eric Staal scored, and the Canadiens defeated the Vegas Golden Knights with a 4-1 win in game 5 on Tuesday night.
Nick Suzuki, who was the primary assist on Staal's goal, broke it down, saying "I thought I had some good speed down the wall, and that drew two guys toward me. I thought when I got down the corner, if I turned up, someone would come up late. Staal was in a great spot, and it was a great shot."
Before Staal scored, it was Jesperi Kotkaniemi who scored his 5th goal of the playoffs 8:45 into the first period, giving Montreal a 1-0 lead. Staal then scored 6:32 into the second to up the lead to 2-0, and then Caufield scored just over 3 minutes later, and it was 3-0 Canadiens at the end of two periods. After Max Pacioretty scored to make it 3-1 Montreal, Suzuki scored on an empty net to make it 4-1.
Carey Price had another fantastic game in net for the Canadiens, saving 26 of 27 shots for a .963 save percentage. His stellar play is a big reason Montreal is a win away from the Stanley cup final, when no one ever expected Montreal to go this far.
Even more surprising for the Canadiens is that they have been without head coach Dominique Ducharme for the last 3 games, and have a 2-1 record in those games without him. Ducharme received a positive Covid-19 test after game two of the series, and has been in self isolation ever since. One of Ducharme's assistants, Luke Richardson, has been the acting coach in the mean time.
Richardson said of being one win away from the cup final that "We're definitely excited with what we're doing right now, but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We finish off games the right way. We're going to go into the next game, and it's one game to win."
For Vegas, they went back to Marc-Andre Fleury in net, who has started all but two games for the Golden Knights this postseason. Fleury took his 3rd loss of the series, saving 22 of 25 shots, for just a .880 save percentage in the loss. Vegas didn't get many chances, but they also didn't convert on the ones they had, going 0-2 on the power play.
Vegas coach Pete Deboer said it was "Hard to explain. We didn't have great legs, didn't have great execution. You have to give them credit. I thought they played a real good road game. And then obviously falling behind early against that team is tough. That's not a formula for success, we've shown."
Game 6 will be in Montreal on Thursday night, with the Canadiens looking to officially punch their ticket to the Stanley cup final, and the Golden Knights looking to force a game 7 back in Las Vegas.
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