WASHINGTON -- Brian Gionta scored the Montreal Canadiens first goal of the night -- and it seems like so long ago now considering 10 more goals were scored before Washington put Game 2 in the books 31 seconds into overtime.
As devastating as it is for the Habs to lose this way -- they blew a three-goal lead, then got scored on with just 1:21 left to send the game to overtime before eventually losing in the extra session -- Gionta, a spokesperson in the dressing room, was looking at the big picture.
Montreal came to Washington and accomplished what it wanted to accomplish by getting a split and stealing home-ice advantage in the series, which shifts back to La Belle Province for Game 3 Monday.
Here's a portion of what Gionta had to say to the media after Saturday's game:
Q: Is it hard to explain to fans that you played pretty well when the opponent scores six goals?
Gionta: "No, I mean, they got a lot of offensive talent over there and they're going to score goals. We have to limit their chances a little more. Obviously if you look at tonight's game, they were shooting everything from everywhere and trying to get guys (to the net). We have to do a better job of backtracking and staying with our gap to try to limit the amount of times they can walk over the blue line with their head up."
Q: The Capitals have a history of doing this where they come back and score in bunches. Is it just sometimes hard to contain them when they're going like that?
Gionta: "Oh, yeah. It's not one line and it's not one guy. They have a lot of guys that can cause some damage and unfortunately they hurt us tonight, but we're happy with how things turned out in the two games down here."
Q: That's the big picture you guys look at?
Gionta: "Yeah, the big picture is the series. It's not the game, it's the series and what we're able to do, what we're able to build off and what we can learn from."
Q: OK, but can it be easy to look past a game like this when you seemingly had it with five minutes left?
Gionta: "Oh, I don't know if it's easy; it's never easy. Any loss in the playoffs is a big loss but obviously we need to learn from it and forget about it as quick as we can. That's another key to playoff hockey. Things happen so quick. You're right back at it so you have to forget about it and learn from the mistakes."
Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter at: @drosennhl
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