If you're looking for some drama, how about Dustin Tokarski on Broadway?
The Canadiens arrived in New York with a very different game plan. Michel Therrien scrambled the lines, and clearly put the emphasis on grinding out a road win, and the team responded.
Whatever disjointedness the personnel adjustments brought to Montreal's side was made up for in grit. The Canadiens sacrificed their finesse for some hard-nosed physicality. It was out of character, and without Tokarski's heroics, it was beyond risky, but it was also enough to get them back in this series.
The Rangers had more room to skate and make plays, and they displayed their talent at full speed for most of the hockey game. Henrik Lundqvist was as good as he was in the first two games of the series, and Ryan McDonagh, who'd managed six points in the first two, was at his best on the defensive side of the puck. They had the Canadiens on the ropes. And like a pro wrestling kick-out, the Habs lifted that one shoulder off the mat.
This game turned quickly after Brandon Prust leveled Derek Stepan with a late hit; a clear headshot. It was ugly. It was the kind of ugly the Canadiens were intent on playing with. There's no condoning that, but it kept the Canadiens on their plan, even when the first goal of the hockey game got by their goalie.
Prust took Stepan out of the game for most of the first period. He took Derek Dorsett out of most of it too. Dan Carcillo took himself out of it, trying to fight the linesman to get to Prust. His contribution was undeniable, even if it came on a hit that's likely to get him suspended.
The plan for game four will still incorporate the bruising style the Canadiens adopted for game three, but straying too far from their speed and skill has its disadvantages. Tokarski gave the Habs the confidence they need to ride back to Montreal with the series knotted at two, but they can't expect for him to repeat that performance in game four.
Back to the drawing board for Therrien, though he seems comfortable there.
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1) Following along on twitter generally gives one the pulse of what people are feeling during the game.
I was astounded by the amount of complaints about Josh Gorges last night. He was on an island with the way the forwards were running around looking for hits, getting caught tired in their own end, not to mention that his partner--P.K. Subban--played his worst game in months.
Subban was a shell of his energetic self, and frustration clearly got the better of him several times in the game. His focus was off, his game was off, and he just couldn't seem to get it back on the rails when he tried to.
Gorges had six blocked shots (two more than anyone else in the game), and people want to jump on him for the most heroic one of them all, after Carl Hagelin was left all alone to whack the rebound out of mid-air?
Subban gave up the 2-on-1 shooting into shinpads instead of putting the puck in the corner. He was dead on the play. It was a great play by Hagelin to block it, but Subban's only savior on the play would've been to trip Hagelin and go to the box.
As for Gorges, he ended up backed into Tokarski because he played the pass--like he was supposed to--the whole way.
Thomas Vanek was back on time to get to Hagelin on the rebound. He takes a swat at the puck instead of burying Hagelin (his job was to bury Hagelin).
2) Alexei Emelin certainly had some sloppy moments in the game. It's undeniable. But in what world is he at fault for Chris Kreider's deflection banking off his heel and into the net?
The whole team was collapsing in the zone, and truly the only error came about 15 seconds earlier, when Tomas Plekanec failed to win the faceoff, and Max Pacioretty had the chance to move forward with it, or chip it forward, or fight for position until someone else could make a play with it. Instead, he chipped it backwards, while the Rangers had an extra man on the ice to win the numbers game along the boards. The scramble was on from that point, and the Habs nearly survived it.
3) It wasn't pretty, but it was the gutsiest performance of Andrei Markov's career. He took huge hits to make plays. He gave huge hits to make plays. He blocked shots labeled for goals. He scored. He was a leader in every sense of the word.
I don't know what was running through Markov's mind, but part of me felt like last night, I saw a guy who was tired of being on the losing end of big games--whether it was in his previous playoff games, or in the last two Olympics. He took matters into his own hands last night, and a huge part of that win is on his shoulders.
4) Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk joined the Canadiens together. Both have carved out excellent career paths, and both have done exceptional things along the way in their short time in the NHL.
Gallagher wears the number 11 the way Saku Koivu did in the playoffs for Montreal. He's all heart. You can do just about anything to put him down, but he gets up every time, and he just keeps coming. You can't win without a player like him.
Galchenyuk scored the biggest goal of his life last night. He did it by getting to the right area and stopping there. It went off his face, off his stick and into the net.
Daniel Briere scored the same kind of goal.
Therrien's grinding gameplan sure made it a more scary hockey game for the Canadiens than it had to be, but it also emphasized the importance of doing the ugly work that would lead to goals on Lundqvist.
5) Subban didn't have it. Neither did Plekanec. Neither did Gionta. Neither did Bourque. The Canadiens didn't have their speed. They didn't have their rhythm. Part of that was the personnel adjustments. Part of that was the game plan. Part of that was frustration. Part of that was their energy level. And the last part of it was that the Rangers played great.
But the Habs showed a lot of heart. They kept going when they could've allowed all of that to take them over.
They probably drew a lot of confidence from Tokarski's performance.
They got goals by doing the things you have to do to score when a goalie's standing on his head. And they have those things to take them into what should be the most charged game of the series on Sunday.