Cammalleri reflects on lost opportunity

BOSTON -- Mike Cammalleri has proven in back-to-back playoff years that he is made for the postseason.

Last year, he led the League in playoff goals with 13 in 19 games, while this season he exits the playoffs as the League's leading point-getter after the first round with 10 in 7 games. Also, with an assist in Wednesday night's 4-3 Game 7 overtime loss to the Bruins, Cammalleri improved his scoring totals in 8 elimination games over the past two years to 7 goals and 4 assists for 11 points.
Here's how he saw the Canadiens' early elimination from this year's playoffs:

Q: Do you feel that a good performance by your team was taken away by the Bruins in overtime?

Cammalleri: I guess a lot can be made of that, but it's hard. I struggle with the whole idea of the moral victory. I guess you can look back on it, maybe, eventually, but it's a tough one to take. I thought this series was one that, at times, we really could have taken it and we didn't. So, (there's) not much to say now. The talking takes place out there and they scored one more than we did.

Q: Is this harder to take because you lost three games in overtime?

Cammalleri: I think if you lose a series in five games or four games, you
probably can sit down and say we could've been a lot better and we probably didn't deserve it, you know? And I'm not saying you ever lose and deserve it because things happen for a reason, but what makes it tougher is just the way the series went and how competitive it was with the three overtime games and the way it could have went. It could have went our way, so (it's a) tough one, for sure.

Q: How did you like the way your team came out in the early part of the overtime?

Cammalleri: I liked that. We wanted to come out, we talked about it in the room, coming out and coming out firing and I was really impressed with the fact that we were able to come out with that energy level. It's been a taxing series physically because of the length of the games, so I was impressed with our overall team energy to come out in their building at the start of overtime. I could've probably ended it there a couple of times, and then we don't.

Q: What does it say about this team with all the injuries you had to overcome?

Cammalleri: The outside public can commend us for those sorts of things, and it's something we appreciate, but it's not something we dwell on very much. It really doesn't do us any good dwelling on these things.

 Q: Are you proud of this team?

Cammalleri: Tough one. I don't like losing. I don't know if I can sit here and say that we're proud of losing. I don't agree with that by any means. We would have liked to win that series. It's not easy to sit here and have to answer these questions.