If you think the Canadiens will be intimidated by an elimination game against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, think again.
This is old hat for the Habs.
Adversity? What adversity?
The Canadiens have dealt with so many issues in these Eastern Conference finals, they probably have lost count by now.
First, they lost Carey Price, their starting goaltender and the reigning Olympic gold-medal winner, in Game 1 when he suffered a knee injury in a collision with Chris Kreider. That left the rest of the series in the hands of a 24-year-old netminder named Dustin Tokarski, who had played in just 10 career NHL games, none in the playoffs.
Then they lost the first two games of the series at home, in the Bell Centre, where they previously had owned the lease on the collective psyches of the Rangers — particularly their all-world goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who had been more of a pawn than a “King’’ there.
Next, they lost starting forward Brandon Prust to a two-game suspension for Games 4 and 5 for his late hit on Rangers center Derek Stepan in Game 3.
And most recently, they stared at a 3-1 series deficit in Tuesday night’s elimination game at the Bell Centre, where they turned the usually disciplined Rangers into a rag-tag operation that looked more like a sloppy weekend beer league squad in a 7-4 win in Game 5.
If the Canadiens have proven one thing in the last two rounds of these playoffs it is this: You can’t kill ’em.
They are nothing if not resilient. They were down 3-2 to the Bruins in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinals and came back to win Games 6 and 7. Tuesday night’s victory, which forced Thursday’s Game 6 at the Garden, gave the Canadiens a 3-0 record in elimination games in these playoffs.
“We’re used to playing under pressure, and I think that helps us a lot,’’ Canadiens center Lars Eller said.
“We’re in the same position we were in against Boston, and they were considered the best team in the league,’’ winger Max Pacioretty said. “We know it’s possible. [The Rangers] did it to Pittsburgh.’’
Yes they did, which makes the Rangers sloppy performance in Game 5 — despite being just 60 minutes of good hockey away from reaching the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 20 years — so unsettling.
The Rangers should have been familiar with the desperation they would be facing Tuesday night, because it was the very desperation they delivered in the Pittsburgh series when they were down 3-1.
“Obviously, they’re going to have life after a win like that,” Rangers defenseman Dan Girardi said after Game 5.
“You win a game and things change in your locker room and you start feeling better about yourselves,’’ Rangers defenseman Marc Staal said Wednesday. “Obviously, we know how it feels coming back in a series like that, but it doesn’t change anything in our room. We are as confident as ever going into our building and looking forward to it.’’
So, too, are the Canadiens, who believe — despite facing elimination — they have reversed the pressure and returned it to the Rangers’ bench for Game 6. The Rangers, after all, are supposed to close this thing out at home, aren’t they?
There was a palpable air of confidence in the Montreal dressing room after the game Tuesday.
“When our backs are against the wall, sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the outside noise here in this city,’’ Pacioretty said of hockey-crazed Montreal. “It’s easy to get caught up in the outside noise, and when we let it affect us and we don’t worry about ourselves and what we can control, we get away from our game.
“When we’re in desperation mode with our backs against the wall, we’re just worrying about what we can control and that’s when we have success. [Tuesday] night was an example of how we have to play, and that desperation is what we need the next game.’’
Or there will be no next “next game’’ for the Habs.