MONTREAL - Michael Cammalleri scored his 10th and 11th goals of the playoffs as the Montreal Canadiens staved off NHL playoff elimination with a 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday night.
The defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins had closed out five straight playoff series on the road, but with the best-of-seven series tied 3-3, they will now have to try to take this on home ice in Game 7 on Wednesday night.
Defenceman Jaroslav Spacek, back after missing nine games with a virus, scored and Maxim Lapierre added the eventual game-winner in the third period for Montreal, who entered the playoffs as the eighth and last seed in the Eastern Conference.
The Canadiens will play a seventh game for a second series in a row after taking top seed Washington the distance in the opening round.
Montreal defenceman Hal Gill, who left Game 5 after suffering a skate cut behind a knee, sat out and perhaps not coincidentally, Pittsburgh star Sidney Crosby ended his six-game scoring slump. More than 70 per cent of Crosby's shifts had been against the rangy Gill.
Kris Letang and Bill Guerin, who scored while Marc-Andre Fleury was pulled for an extra attacker, had the other goals for the Penguins. Pittsburgh outshot the Canadiens 37-25.
The crowd of 21,273 got into the game early as Cammalleri scored on the first shot of the game at 1:13. Letang lost control of the puck in the neutral zone and Cammalleri worked a give-and-go with Tomas Plekanec before beating Fleury to the glove side.
That got the fans chanting Fleury's name, but Crosby tied it at 7:22 when he fed the point and went to the net to tip Mark Eaton's shot in our of the air.
Early in the second, Jaroslav Halak got lucky as Sergei Gonchar and Evgeni Malkin both hit posts during the same power play, but when Montreal's Roman Hamrlik immediately took another penalty, Letang made no mistake on a shot from the slot at 5:21.
The Penguins were in complete control, with a nearly 3-to-1 shot advantage, when Cammalleri tied the score at 10:45, backhanding a shot in off Fleury's blocker after taking a feed from Andrei Kostitsyn.
As the goal was being announced, a TV time-out was called. P.A. announcer Michel Lacroix held off naming the assists and the usual commercials were put on hold as the crowd sensed a momentum shift and gave the home side a long, loud standing ovation, waving their white towels and singing "Ole, Ole!"
Only three minutes after play resumed, Spacek teed up the puck at the blue-line and fired it in through heavy traffic to put Montreal ahead.
And in the dying seconds of the period, Scott Gomez missed an open net that could have made it a two-goal lead.
Halak stoned the Penguins in the third, and checking forward Lapierre made like Canadiens legend Guy Lafleur as he crossed the blue-line, put a move on Alex Goligoski, cut in front of the net and tucked the puck inside the post at 11:03.
Fleury was pulled with 1:30 left to play and Guerin reached out to tip in a Gonchar shot only six seconds later to make it a one-goal game.
NOTES: Gill tested his leg in the pre-game warm-up and was not able to play, but Spacek returned and took his old spot on a pair with Hamrlik, while Josh Gorges paired with P.K. Subban. . . . . Alexei Ponikarovsky and Ruslan Fedotenko sat out a second game for the Penguins. . . The most popular non-official souvenir in Montreal these days is a shirt bearing a stop sign with Halak written on it.
