Habs and Wings draw first blood

April 10, 2008   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

All Photos Copyright Getty Images

 

The home Original Six top seeds in each conference drew first blood in their respective best-of-seven quarterfinal series tonight.

Montreal jumped on rival Boston with two goals in the first 2:02 from Sergei and Andrei Kostistyn en route to a 4-1 home triumph to take a 1-0 series lead- improving to a perfect 9-0 this season against the Bruins.

Shane Hnidy got the B’s on the board but goals by depth players Bryan Smolinski and Tom Kostopoulos gave the Habs a final comfortable margin of victory in a game they controlled outshooting the Bruins 32-18.

As expected, Montreal captain Saku Koivu wasn’t back with instead leading scorer Alex Kovalev donning the ‘C.’ AK27 was dangerous all night in a high tempo game setting up teammates for quality chances and missing a lay-up off a great setup.

The thing which impressed me the most was the physical nature of the Canadiens as they continually pounded Boston booing target Zdeno Chara, who definitely looked to be feeling the effects of a late season injury. Mike Komisarek was pretty good in this one and the rookie Carey Price stopped 17 of 18 shots for his first NHL postseason victory.

Boston was outshot 22-12 the final 40 minutes. They’ll need to mount a better attack for Game Two Saturday night. Especially with a back-to-back the following day back in Beantown.

As for the other game, the Red Wings got a pair of third period Henrik Zetterberg goals to hold off the Predators 3-1 at Joe Louis Arena.

Johan Franzen gave the Wings the lead in the first but some solid netminding by Nashville’s Dan Ellis in a busy second in which he stopped all 17 shots gave his team a chance. Enforcer Jordin Tootoo got the Preds even at 17:47 when he neatly deflected home a Greg Zanon point shot past Dominik Hasek.

Undiscouraged, the Wings responded with a splendid final stanza outscoring Nashville by two and outshooting them 13-3.

Their leading finisher came through with the money goal off a nifty Pavel Datsyuk setup one-timing one past Ellis to convert a two-on-one to put Detroit ahead for good 2-1 with 13:06 left.

The Preds would pull Ellis for an extra attacker but couldn’t get anything close to a quality opportunity as the Red Wings played solid D. With the Nashville starter who kept his club in the contest with 37 saves on the bench during a draw outside the Detroit zone, Kris Draper won it right to Zetterberg, who didn’t miss to salt Game One away with 19 ticks left.

Game Two between the Central rivals is Saturday afternoon at 2 ET on NBC.

Dallas and Anaheim are facing off now for Game One on Versus while San Jose looks to even their series up against Calgary on Center Ice.