Senators let Bruins take control in third
Boston gets a pair past goalie Anderson after going entire period without a shot
OTTAWA Guy Boucher couldn’t hide his frustration with his Ottawa Senators.
The first round of the NHL playoffs certainly didn’t start the way the Senators would have envisioned after they dropped a 2-1 decision to the Boston Bruins Wednesday night in front of a sellout crowd of 18,702 at the Canadian Tire Centre in the opener of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal.
Boston’s Brad Marchand scored the winner with 2:33 left in the third period to give the Bruins the early edge in the series. Frank Vatrano had tied it up earlier in the third period, while only Bobby Ryan was able to score for Ottawa.
Both Boston goals were the result of turnovers in the Ottawa zone and Boucher didn’t hide the fact he felt his team gave this one away.
“There were two shifts where we just gave it to them,” Boucher said. “There was just giveaway after giveaway after giveaway. One guy gets it, gives it back to them. We defend well against it, we give it back to them, we give it back to them. When you give it back three times or four times to your opponent … it’s the Stanley Cup playoffs — it’ll hurt you.
“Two shifts where we had the puck on many occasions and we had done well before … so we gave it away.”
Had it not been for goaltender Tuukka Rask, the Bruins wouldn’t have got away with the win, but he shut the door when it counted the most with 26 saves. He made a huge stop on Mark Stone with eight seconds left that would have tied it.
Still, captain Erik Karlsson wasn’t pleased with the Senators’ performance.
“It just wasn’t a 60-minute effort tonight,” Karlsson said. “It’s a tight game. Anything can happen. We’re going to move on from this one. It was a close one.”
The Bruins tied it up at 4:55 of the third with the first shot Boston had on Senators goaltender Craig Anderson in a span of more than 25 minutes. Vatrano fired a shot from the slot that beat Anderson high on the blocker side.
“We couldn’t get the puck out. We got a little bit cute in the third and we were worried about where we were going to put it instead of making sure it got out,” Karlsson said.
The Senators took the play to the Bruins in the second. Not only did they pull ahead 1-0, they rebounded from a difficult start by keeping Boston from registering a shot in the period. That’s the first time in Ottawa’s playoff history they’ve held an opponent to zero shots in a period.
Ryan, who started the night on the fourth line, opened the scoring at 10:28 of the second to give the Senators the upper hand. He did a good job driving to the front of the net and had a great second effort to slide the loose puck past Rask, sending the home crowd into hysterics.
“They outplayed us when it counted in the third period. At the same time, there were a lot of positives. We had a lot of chances. We’re going to have to find a way to score more than one,” Ryan said.
Game 2 of the series is on Saturday in Ottawa.