BOSTON, Mass – Game seven of the Eastern Conference finals was the 100th game of the season for both the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Boston Bruins. It was a closely played affair with both teams playing like champions.
Unfortunately there could only be one winner and that winner would be the Boston Bruins on the strength of a Nathan Horton goal and 24 saves by netminder Tim Thomas.
The win allows the Bruins to compete for the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1990. They have lost in the finals in five consecutive series since their last win in 1972.
Boston received a large break as referees Dan O’Halloran and Stephen Walkom put their whistles away and declined to call any penalties. The clubs accommodated the refs by playing an up-tempo and basically clean contest. Rarely were there any instances where an obvious penalty was either committed or missed. One case could have been a hauldown of Boston’s Patrice Bergeron, but the game went on.
The lack of calls was a detriment to the Lightning who had a marked advantage on both the power play and penalty kill during the series.
“I think what I liked about the refereeing tonight, they let the two teams decide the outcome,” said Boston coach Claude Julien.
“I think both teams are very disciplined tonight. Even though, you know, we could question that (Bergeron) call, it didn’t really matter at that point. It was about staying focused and doing the right thing here. And, you know, I thought for what this game meant, I thought the referees handled themselves extremely well. I’m not saying that because we won, I’m saying that because even as it was 0-0, I liked the way they were handling it.” Boston held the territorial advantage for most of the contest, but there was an ebb and flow to the game as each team had their chances to notch the all-important first goal. Each team played as hard as they could defensively with each club blocking 17 shots throughout the contest. In Boston’s case they made life relatively easy for Thomas as they nearly blocked as many shots (17) as the Lightning put on goal (24).
After two and a half periods had expired Horton scored the game’s lone score. Boston defender Andrew Ference gained possession of the puck at his defensive blueline and passed to David Krejci. Krejci weaved across the Lightning line and fed a perfect pass to Horton who had crashed the net. All Horton had to do was re-direct Krejci’s perfect pass into the goal to put Boston up.
“I just looked at the clip (of Horton’s goal) five times now, and it’s hard to look at, because you know it’s one little defensive mistake,” said Tampa Bay coach Guy Boucher. “If you don’t make it, if they make one, if you capitalize on one of your chances, you know, we’re all happy here, but in the end, they deserve that goal. They made it happen. And they’re going to the Stanley Cup Finals.” Tampa attempted to threaten the slim lead, but Thomas and the Bruins were more than up to the task as they erased the last seven minutes and 33 seconds with ease.
“We had energy. We had confidence. Certainly had some chances earlier on,” said Julien. “But their goaltender was extremely good for them and kept them in the game.”
“I thought it was a hard-fought series. Tampa Bay certainly deserves a lot of credit. The fact that where they were before this year for the last few seasons and to come back this year and play the way they did, and then push us straight to the limit in the third round of the Playoffs, I think they deserve a lot of credit.”
Boston will now take on the Vancouver Canucks for the Stanley Cup. Game one of the series will take place on Wednesday, June 1. The first two games will take place in Canada and the following two are set for Boston.
Notes: Tampa Bay played two 1-0 game seven’s in this year’s playoffs. They defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins in the opening round before moving on to play the Washington Capitals. This was the first game seven loss in Tampa franchise history….Steven Stamkos took a deflected blast off the stick of Johnny Boychuk directly onto his visor. Stamkos did suffer a broken nose but likely escaped serious injury due to the fact he was indeed wearing the visor.
Contact Tom.Schettino@prohockeyunews.com
