It was well worth staying in Price's corner

No matter the angle or the Bruin - in this case Marco Sturm - Canadiens goalie Carey Price kept his net free of pucks. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

MONTREAL - Oh, how the Bruins and their fans have seen this tired old story play out the same way, and with so many different characters playing the spoiler's role.

Ken Dryden. Steve Penney. Patrick Roy. Now, Carey Price has added his name to the list of upstart Canadiens goalies who have derailed yet another Bruins playoff run.

Montreal got the luck of its relocated Forum ghosts early in last night's decisive Game 7 at the Bell Centre when Michael Komisarek's point shot struck Petteri Nokelainen's stick on its way to giving the Canadiens a sudden lead. And it was the 20-year-old Price's skill that allowed Montreal to escape the first period with an advantage instead of trailing by a goal or two.

"They came out hard," said Price, who made 11 of his 25 saves in the first period. "They were giving it all they got and fortunately for us we were able to weather the storm and things started to turn around for us once we got that first goal."

As coolly as Price comports himself on and off the ice, it probably wasn't a slip of the tongue that the rookie believed Montreal's fortune turned on Komisarek's goal 3:31 in and not on Mark Streit's crushing blow midway through the second.

Despite allowing 10 goals in the Bruins' consecutive wins leading up to Game 7, Price kept his composure with everything on the line.

"He is important every game," teammate Alex Kovalev said. "I've said it many times and I'll repeat it again, he is the reason where we are right now."

Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau had full confidence in Price, who was anointed the team's No. 1 when Cristobal Huet was dealt to Washington at the trading deadline.

"In the playoffs you need good goaltending," Carbonneau said. "That's no surprise. We talked to Carey a little bit before that he didn't have to be Superman or somebody that he's not, he just needs to be Carey Price. He's been good before and he will be good in the future because of that.

"I thought we controlled maybe the first five or 10 minutes of the game, then we got a couple of penalties and then we stopped dumping the puck in, but he made the saves that we needed and then after that we just went on offense, got a few goals, and never looked back."

If the young Canadiens learned anything from seeing their two-game advantage melt into a winner-take-all showdown it was the value of the killer instinct.

"It seemed like the last couple of games we've had this one-goal lead," Komisarek said. "Our second period was a statement period and it really paid off."

Carbonneau moved Kovalev to a line with Saku Koivu and Christopher Higgins, spreading out the Canadiens' offense as Tomas Plekanec centered the Kostitsyn brothers, Andrei and Sergei.

The new line combinations - Kovalev and Koivu hadn't played together all season - paid off as the 35-year-old Kovalev assisted on Montreal's first two goals while the young Kostitsyns scored each of the Canadiens' final three tallies.

The line changes proved the final chess move in a battle between two coaches who made adjustments throughout the series to gain the upper hand and all-important momentum.

"A Game 7 you can only win with an unbelievable team effort," Streit said. "I think everybody worked hard and finally we played a little bit more our game. I thought the first few games we didn't use our speed as much and today we did and the whole team played well and we worked hard."

Looking across the way, Carbonneau offered praise to the Bruins and coach Claude Julien's efforts in battling through an injury-plagued season to push both teams to their limits.

"They had a lot more challenges than we had and to be able to get the season that they had, you have to give credit to Claude and their staff," Carbonneau said. "I mean, they did an unbelievable job. We didn't have to go through that. I won't apologize for it because we didn't have any injuries, but the challenges that we faced the last five days, we were better prepared, maybe, but we still had some question marks but we responded very well."