We’ve Been Here Before

It’s a familiar situation for the Montreal Canadiens who enter tonight’s must win to stave off elimination game five from the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, PA.

They’ve been down but not out two times already in these 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It all starts win one man.

For as good as Jaroslav Halak was during the quarter and semi-final rounds, he has to be better. A repeat performance from game three is in order, and tonight might have to be even better.

For as gritty and feisty the team was during games three and four in this series, they have to fuel that fire and ignite the flame higher.

The Philadelphia Flyers have one player capable of being a fire extinguisher: Chris Pronger.

You saw during the course of game three that when the big barbarian blueliner is off, and looking more like a gigantic pylon, the Flyers do not seem to be able to transition their game to step up a level to correct Pronger’s hiccups.

Pronger has been the catalyst, along with Matt Carle, Braydon Coburn and Kimmo Timonen, of the Flyers defensive group keeping the Habs speedy offense from generating any quality chances.

The Habs have matched the Flyers style already in this series and in doing so they have the ability to create confusion within the opposition.

It helps the team get under the skin of the Flyers players causing them to take penalties due to frustration.

Hal Gill, Maxim Lapierre, Travis Moen and P.K. Subban all have different quality traits as players who can play a big roll as agitators. That will be the type of game the Habs will need to execute in order to obtain offensive chances.  For every Flyers player taken out of the play is one more chance for Montreal to cause a problem.

Tonight, Philadelphia has all the pressure. Winning a close out game, especially on home ice, is no easy task.

Michael Cammalleri, Tomas Plekanec, Andrei Kostitsyn, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta, five of the Habs top six forwards need to take their game above and beyond tonight.  For after tonight, if the results are negative, there is no tomorrow.

Well there is, but who really wants tomorrow to come when it could potentially be clean out your locker day.

The plan has been set, now it is up for Montreal to execute the game plan to the best of their ability.