Acciari’s heroics are just a bit off
Noel Acciari was in the midst of celebrating perhaps one of the best, most important shifts of his life and what he thought was the go-ahead goal, when Ottawa coach Guy Boucher pulled the rug out from under him last night.
Acciari had just done his usual wrecking ball routine on the forecheck, then later sealed off Senators defenseman Marc Methot along the boards to allow Riley Nash to get the puck. Nash flipped it to the right point and Charlie McAvoy, who fired a shot toward the net. Acciari, who had made a beeline to the high slot, tipped the shot past goalie Craig Anderson at 10:49 of the second period.
The only problem was, Acciari was offside on the initial chip-in, and someone on Boucher’s staff saw it. It didn’t matter that the goal came nearly 20 seconds after the offside, it had to come off the board. The B’s would not get another one.
“I didn’t even think about it (being offsides) but things happen. It was on me. I was offsides so there’s nothing you can do about it, you just have to continue the game,” Acciari said after the B’s 1-0 loss to the Sens in Game 4 of the first-round series. “I was excited. It was an exciting time of the game. I had just scored the first one of the game to get the team going. I was definitely excited, but things happen and I was offsides so there’s nothing I could do.”
Boucher said it was a bit chaotic on the bench.
“First time, we get the call on our side for the video review,” he said. “So either somebody else had better glasses than me, or the last times I didn’t do a good job. I think on this one our video guy ( Martin Raymond) did a terrific job because right away we couldn’t hear anything because the fans were so loud. We couldn’t hear, really, so Marty was trying to hear, but he was screaming really loud. And at the last second I got it through that we needed to call that.”
It was too bad for Acciari, because the shift was exactly what the B’s wanted to do.
“That’s what we were focusing on,” said Acciari, who had scored on a very similar play in Game 3 to get the comeback rolling. “Just getting pucks deep, forechecking hard and that’s when the turnovers will come. We just need to continue that and more goals will eventually start happening.”
But the B’s are running out of chances.
“You just have to lay it on the line and go back (today), watch some film, see what we can improve on,” Acciari said. “But it’s win or go home. I think everyone has the right mindset going into (tomorrow). We’re not giving up and we’re ready to take it to Game 7.”
Miller back in
Colin Miller returned to the lineup. Miller had been knocked to the sidelines when he was felled by a leg check by the Sens’ Mark Borowiecki in Game 1.
As badly as he wanted to get back, Miller said any injured player has to feel confident in his health before stepping on the ice.
“Obviously, it’s the playoffs and you want to get back out there as soon as you can. But with that said, if you go out there and you’re hurt and you can’t do much, it’s not really going to help,” he said. “A couple of times in this series we’ve had five defensemen and that’s always hard for the guys, to put them in that situation. Just going out there (too) quick and not being able to play, that’s not going to help either.”
He played 13:27 with one shot on net. With Miller back in, Tommy Cross sat out.
Bergy a Selke finalist
For the sixth consecutive season, Patrice Bergeron is a finalist for the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward. The Ducks’ Ryan Kesler and the Wild’s Mikko Koivu are the other finalists.
Bergeron will be going for his fourth win, which would match Bob Gainey for the most in league history. . . .
A couple of Bruins fans got into it with the Sens as they were leaving the ice after Game 3, with Karlsson at one point whacking a fan’s hand that was wrapped around the blade of a teammate’s stick. The Sens avoided any meaningful comments about the fans, but B’s defenseman Joe Morrow, while not addressing the incident itself, did not.
“The only way I can describe them as is vicious. They’re vicious fans,” said a smiling Morrow, clearly meaning it as a compliment. “They love the sport and they love to support their teams. New England as a whole is a pretty special place to play any sport, but it’s not very comparable to anything. Something that’s special that I’ll always remember is standing in that tunnel before the drop of the puck and hearing that ‘Let’s go Bruins!’ chant in the background. It’s special for me and hopefully it’s special for them.”