NHL Playoffs: Michael Ryder the Hero as Bruins Earn Game 4 Comeback Win

Claude Julien brought his Boston Bruins to Lake Placid, NY after Monday's Game 3 win over the Montreal Canadiens. Lake Placid, where the greatest night in American hockey history occurred 31 years ago, seemed the perfect location to bring his team, who had narrowly kept themselves in the series with the win Monday. It was a reminder of an important idea, the idea that nothing is impossible and there is always a way.

Thursday night at the Bell Centre, the Boston Bruins found a way.

It was not easy. It was not pretty. Somehow, despite the back and forth, fast-paced, nail-biting affair, the Bruins escaped Montreal with two wins to level the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series with their arch-rivals the Canadiens at two games apiece.

The win on Thursday came on a Michael Ryder shot in overtime in a 5-4 victory.

Montreal started the game on fire, constantly attacking Tim Thomas' goal and never giving the Bruins a chance to breathe. Finally, Brent Sopel got the opening goal eight minutes in.

The Bruins started to clean it up a little near the end of the first period and finally found twine two minutes into the next period when Ryder beat Carey Price to equalize.

The deadlock did not last long. The game was tied for a matter of four minutes before Mike Cammalleri and Andrei Kostitsyn scored in rapid succession to put the Habs up 3-1.

This is where the game became a true back and forth playoff style game. The Bruins refused to give up. Andrew Ference found the net two minutes after Kostitsyn, though some controversy swirls around the events after the goal, as Ference was caught on tape flipping the bird to the Montreal crowd.

This did not affect the game at all, but the goal certainly did, as both teams flew up and down the ice, trying to get that crucial goal each knew it needed. Finally, Patrice Bergeron got the important equalizer just before the end of the second frame.

The third did not start well for the Bruins and it looked like Montreal was going to wrap it up early on.

Bergeron got an immediate, albeit and extremely soft, hooking minor 30 seconds into the third period. P.K. Suban's slapshot beat Thomas a minute later and the Canadiens were back in the driver's seat at 4-3.

The game continued to move at a fast, intense pace and both sides refused to give up, especially the Bruins, who looked more determined down the stretch.

Chris Kelly, wearing a full face mask after hitting his face on the post of the goal after being back-checked by Scott Gomez in Game 3, beat Price with about six minutes left and silenced the Bell Centre, a rare feat for any player. Despite some last ditch efforts on a late power play for the Canadiens, the game remained deadlocked at 4-4 after three.

The overtime was short, but exciting. The Canadiens picked up where the left off and constantly invaded Thomas' goal at the start before the Bruins could finally break away. Rich Peverley raced up the ice, only to miss wide. Luckily, his teammates caught up. Kelly picked up the rebound and played it across the face of goal to a wide open Ryder who found the top shelf to level the series and send it back to Boston for Game 5 Saturday night.

"We kept plugging away," Thomas said after the game according to the Bruins official Twitter page. "Really it was pretty incredible that we won this game, we really needed to win this game."

They certainly did.

In a series like this, especially between the two biggest rivals in the NHL, it is really difficult to say that this win will swing all the momentum in their favor, but they have the best hand right now. A huge, inspirational win in Montreal to tie the series with now games coming up alternating between cities, with at most two left in Boston, that has to be a huge momentum booster for the Bruins.

However, we can only look one game at a time and even then it is difficult to assess the outcome in a game like this. One thing is for certain though. TD Garden will be rocking on Saturday night.