How far can Carey Price carry Montreal against Tampa?

The Montreal Canadiens are feeling good. They’ve won two games in a row in their second-round series against Tampa. They’re in Game 6 against the Lightning. Tampa doesn’t have forward Ryan Callahan, out after an emergency appendectomy.

In spite of this mojo, the Canadiens’ chances of pushing the series to Game 7 rests on their all-humanity goaltender Carey Price, who has been good enough the last two games.

Can he do it again?

Said the Globe and Mail:

Price, in particular, has stepped to the fore since the Habs went down 3-0 in the series. He made a key save early in Game 4, stopping J.T. Brown on a point-blank chance to preserve a 1-0 Montreal lead. And he made several premium-grade stops in Game 5 – ask Brenden Morrow and Valtteri Filppula about those. 

Yeah, he’s come up with some nice stops. But really, he’s been OK for Montreal these last few games not great.

Said Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston:

Price is having the season of his life — he’ll likely take home both the Vezina Trophy and Hart Trophy in June — but was 0-4-1 against the Lightning with a .906 save percentage during the year.

The last two contests, he’s had a .938 save percentage, but only faced a total of 46 shots on goal. Also from the above story.

“For us, we’ve had success against Carey Price,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper told reporters on a Sunday conference call. “So he, to us, is not the mental block just because we’ve played them so many times in the last couple years and we look back and his numbers against the Tampa Bay Lightning are very pedestrian compared to the rest of the teams.

“That doesn’t make him any less a goaltender. We’ve just found a way a little bit to have some success.”

A Jon Cooper mind game on Price? Nope, the Coop always seems to say it like it is. And he’s right simply based off numbers.

But have the Canadiens figured out how to win with Price not being absurdly good? It took three games, but they may have made the necessary mental adjustments to beat Tampa.

"I feel a group that's confident," Habs coach Michel Therrien said. "It's important to be confident. The reason we're confident is the way we're playing. The way we've been playing is why we start these games with confidence. I really like the way we've been playing in this series since Game 1. The results might not have been there, but we persevered. We didn't want to change things because we thought eventually it would turn around."

This was supposed to be the summer of Canada with the NHL. The Great White North had five teams in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. One had to make it past the first two rounds, right?

The chances were too good. And now, it’s up to Montreal to try to continue the Canadian dream of a possible Stanley Cup Champion, the country's first since 1993. With Calgary now out of the playoffs, Montreal’s Game 6 contest against the Tampa Bay Lightning will be its first as the only Canadian squad left in the playoffs. And after being down 3-0 and putting it to 3-2, their belief is super awesomely high at the moment.

No real pressure Mr. Price of Anahim Lake, British Columbia. This is your mission should you choose to accept it.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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