WILMINGTON, Mass. (AP) – The upstart Boston Bruins left for Montreal Sunday hoping to make team history by completing the first true upset of the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs.

“Obviously, we have the confidence of knowing we can beat these guys, that’s how I look at things,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said at the team’s practice facility.

Julien made the comments before the eighth-seeded Bruins, 5-4 home winners Saturday night, headed north for Monday night’s seventh game of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series against top-seeded Montreal.

“You know, it really is a one-game situation,” he said. “I always go back to the Super Bowl, where the Patriots were by far a favored team (over the Giants), but unfortunately it’s a one-game situation that it’s a tossup – flip a coin and you gotta hope the hockey gods are on your side, you get the breaks and that’s what it boils down to in Game 7.”

Julien was behind the bench when the lower-seeded Canadiens rallied from a 3-1 deficit and beat Boston in 2004, winning Game 7 on the road. But that was only the 20th – and most-recent – time in NHL history a team came back from 3-1 to win. Last Friday, the New Jersey Devils became the 204th team not to be able to do it when they were eliminated by the New York Rangers.

The Bruins, trying to win a playoff series for the first time since 1999, have never come back from 3-1 down (0-20) and this is the first time they’ve even managed to force a Game 7 in that situation. They’ve never come back from 2-0, either, while the Canadiens have never blown a 3-1 lead and lost a series (26-0).

But things like history and odds don’t seem to faze these Bruins, who have traveled through a long road to get to this point. Remember, this team was 0-7-1 against their No. 1 rivals during the regular season before losing the first two games of the playoff series to run their losing streak against Montreal to 13 straight games.

And now, it comes down to one game at the rowdy Bell Centre, where the Bruins faced elimination in Game 5 and won.

One could easily make the argument the pressure is on the favored Canadiens.

“Our situation is different because there are no expectations,” said defenseman Aaron Ward, who has won three Stanley Cups with Detroit and Carolina.

“We were a team that started the season (picked) 30th out of 30, we were lucky to get ourselves into the playoffs, we were in a battle to get into the playoffs. I think there were some people who thought that, having gone through that, we might just check out,” Ward added.

Julien, in his first year as the Bruins coach, says his players didn’t need to be pushed into winning Games 5 and 6. He has made strategic moves – like reinserting Phil Kessel into the lineup after he sat for three games (Kessel has three goals in the two wins), but the players have taken care of the rest.

“I tell you what, these guys deserve a lot of credit and they are going to get it from me,” Julien said. “I think they’ve been absolutely great. They haven’t needed the rah-rah from their coach.”

Notes: Julien said he would not hesitate to insert Patrice Bergeron – out since suffering a severe head injury, Oct. 27 – into the lineup for Game 7, if Bergeron is cleared by doctors. But Bergeron, who has been skating and practicing, said there is no indication that will happen but hopes there is a next round for him to return to. “The guys are doing a great job of giving me a chance, so, hopefully,” he said … Bruins goalie Tim Thomas revealed he played the last five minutes or so of Saturday night’s win with the chin cup of his mask in his mouth because of a broken strap. He had no replacement but the strap was fixed for the third period. Thomas thanked his teammates for winning a game, saying, “It felt incredible when you get four goals scored on you and still come out with a victory … I was excited for the win.” … The Bruins are 9-7 all-time in Game 7s, winning six of their last seven. But they have only played in one since 1994, losing that one to Montreal in ’04. This will be only the fourth Game 7 road game for the franchise.

AP-ES-04-20-08 1428EDT