BOSTON, Mass – The question coming into this series for the Boston Bruins was how quickly they could recover from the eight day long delay between the time they swept the Montreal Canadiens and played Game 1 of their series against the Carolina Hurricanes. The answer is apparently a little over a week.
For the first time in this series the Bruins were on top of their game. Perhaps it was because the Bruins players were a game from shaving their playoff beards or the Hurricanes didn’t play with a second of urgency or maybe it was because Boston returned to their playing style which has brought so much success this year.
Whatever the reason Carolina hung around in this game for a little bit before they gave it their best shot and folded their tents. The pivotal moment in the game came right after Boston’s Steve Montador was assessed an interference penalty less than a minute after Boston had forged a 1-0 lead.
While on that power play the Hurricanes fired off two quick testing shots on Boston goaltender Tim Thomas. The first one came from Bruins nemesis Sergei Samsonov whose wrister tied Thomas up causing the rebound to come directly to Carolina’s Joni Pitkanen. Looking at a wide open side of the net Pitkanen took away nothing as Thomas leaped across and robbed the Hurricanes defender. Carolina would never threaten to win the game again.
After killing Montador’s penalty the Bruins salted the game away when Phil Kessel scored the first of two consecutive goals. The first one came just a little over a minute after the expiration of the Montador penalty courtesy of a cross-ice pass from Marc Savard. After accepting the pass Kessel had an easy time of it as all he had to do was sweep the puck into the Carolina goal. Savard would set up the second goal by finding Kessel alone in the slot. This goal would need a little more skill from Kessel and the huge presence of Zdeno Chara to screen Carolina goaltender Cam Ward. Kessel took Savard’s pass and picked a spot before hitting the target.
Mark Recchi opened the game’s scoring with a power play goal at the 14:48 mark of the first period. Chara fired a wrist shot towards the goal and the puck was deflected first by Carolina defenseman Joe Corvo and then—apparently—by Recchi on the way past Ward.
The final score came courtesy of Milan Lucic who would end the game with a goal and an assist. Even though he picked up two points over the course of the evening the most important contribution to the team by Lucic was when he set the game’s tempo with a pair of hits on Hurricanes defenders early in the game.
While his teammates were busy providing four goals in support, Thomas was outstanding when called upon in the Boston goal. Thomas wasn’t too busy—the Bruins would outshoot Carolina in this game by a 40-19 margin—but when he was called on Thomas stood tall to claim his first career playoff shutout.
With a large spread on the scoreboard the two teams felt it was the right time to settle some personal scores. Boston’s Shawn Thornton and Carolina’s Tim Conboy were each assessed a pair of double minors early in the final period. Later in the period Conboy fought Boston defenseman Mark Stuart. A final fighting major was assessed to Carolina’s Scott Walker who threw a punch at Boston defender Aaron Ward after Ward declined to fight him. For his actions Walker was assessed an instigator penalty along with a fighting major and a game misconduct penalty. When all was said and done the two clubs had combined for a total of 83 penalty minutes.
However this game turned out it will mean nothing to Boston as they need to win the remaining games in the series to move on. Carolina can treat this game as nothing more than a hiccup if they can use their noisy fans to their advantage in Game 6 which is slated for Tuesday, May 12 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Notes: Apparently all a person needs to do this season is to check Eric Staal’s box score to see how the Hurricanes fared. When Staal scores a goal in the playoffs the Hurricanes are 7-0, when he is held scoreless the club is 0-5…Boston coach Claude Julien inserted Shawn Thornton back into the lineup, but Julien did not pull Byron Bitz, the man who had replaced Thornton in Game 4, from the lineup. Instead Julien sat Blake Wheeler who has been scoreless in the playoffs…NHL.com reported Chara had been hit in the knee as the reason for why he limped off the ice near the end of the second period. Actually Chara was hurt when he was slashed by Carolina’s Jussi Jokinen. Jokinen was not penalized on the play and Chara returned for the third period…Some have speculated Walker could draw league sanctions for his punch on Aaron Ward…Boston is 0-20 in series in which they have trailed three games to one. Only one of those series has gone to a seventh game. Carolina has been in this situation three times before and they have won each time…Carolina’s Ryan Bayda (illness) and Andrew Ference (undisclosed) did not dress due to injury. Officially Ference is not on Boston’s injured list and was listed as a DND (did not dress) in Game 4.
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