BOSTON -- The Montreal Canadiens took the air out of the TD Garden midway through the third period on Thursday night, when Tomas Plekanec made up for his "own-goal" in the first period and put the Habs up 2-1 with a snap shot on his own rebound. It was enough to give Montreal a 2-1 win, and hand Tim Thomas his fourth loss of the season in the process.
The Bruins and Canadiens entered the third period tied at 1-1, after Erik Cole re-directed a Jaroslav Spacek shot past Thomas midway through the second period.
Cole was standing all alone in the slot, and batted down Spacek's seemingly harmless shot from the left point. He got enough of it to send it into the back of the net to tie the game.
Patrice Bergeron --kind of -- gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead with 5:55 left in the first period. Bergeron was credited with the goal, but as it turns out, he never even got a piece of the puck as Montreal center man Plekanec cleanly won a face off draw in his own zone, to Carey Price's right.
The face off win -- to begin a Boston power play -- was apparently won too cleanly for Price, who was caught snoozing, and allowed the puck to hit the inside of his right skate and sail into the net for a 1-0 Bruins lead.
But the B's couldn't come up with anything more than that.