DOUBLE-OVERTIME HEARTBREAK
Bruins win, cut Sens’ series lead to 3-2
Instead of sending the Boston Bruins into an early spring Friday night, the Ottawa Senators will be packing up for another trip back to Beantown Saturday.
Trying to book a ticket Round 2 of the NHL playoffs, the Senators are left with more work to do after they squandered a 2-0 lead in the second period and dropped a dramatic 3-2 decision to the Bruins in double-OT in front of 19,209 Friday night at the Canadian Tire Centre to allow Boston to cut Ottawa’s series lead to 3-2.
Sean Kuraly scored his second of the game at 10:19 of the second OT to give the Bruins the win and the Senators don’t have a lot of time to recover with Game 6 set for Sunday at 3 p.m. at the TD Garden.
The Bruins had what looked like a goal by Noel Acciari called back at 14:25 of OT because it was ruled that Craig Anderson was interfered with by Kuraly crashing into him. The review took five minutes but the officials had ruled it no goal on the ice and the call stood so the play went on.
There was a second review when Jean-Gabriel Pageau pushed a puck off the goal-line with his glove with 4:39 left in OT and it was ruled the puck never crossed the line.
Naturally, the Bruins were livid they didn’t get a penalty shot.
While Mark Stone and Pageau scored on Tuukka Rask in regulation, Kuraly and David Pastrnak propelled the Bruins to erase the two-goal deficit in the second by beating Anderson. Nobody could solve the issue in regulation so the two teams went to OT for the third time in the series.
The Senators had two power plays in the final six minutes and couldn’t score on either of them so the game went to OT. They didn’t make the Bruins pay for a too many men on the ice penalty with 2:28 left and a puck over the glass on Dominic Moore.
Battling for their playoff lives, the Bruins came out hard in the third and pushed the pace big time.
The Senators were on their heels and that wasn’t the case for most of the first four games of this series. Mike Hoffman got the first shot of the period at 10:46, it went through Rask and just dribbled wide. No lead has been safe in this series and this night was no different.
After pulling out to a 2-0 lead early in the second, the Senators let it slip away when Kuraly tied it up at 17:05. From behind the net, his attempt to bank the puck off Anderson hit Wideman’s stick and it deflected in to tie it up 2-2 after 40 minutes.
At that point, the building was sitting in stunned silence.
The Bruins got on the board when Anderson initially stopped Patrice Bergeron’s wraparound attempt but Pastrnak was there to deposit it home at 8:40 to pull the Bruins to within a goal.
It came not long after Clarke MacArthur missed a golden opportunity to make it 3-0 and fanned on the shot.
Only 30 seconds into the second, the Senators pulled out to a 2-0 lead when Pageau scored his first of the playoffs to end a 17-game scoreless skid. He took a breakaway pass from Viktor Stalberg and beat Rask through the five-hole. Not long after the crowd struck up a “Pageau, Pageau, Pageau” chant.
There hasn’t been a whole lot to cheer about for either team in the first period of this series with only three goals — and one of those came Friday as the Senators pulled out to a 1-0 lead through 20 minutes and outshot the Bruins 10-6.
You could see the sense of relief on Stone’s face as he opened the scoring at 11:19 of the first. He took an excellent pass from Hoffman to send him in alone and then beat Rask with a backhander on the stick side. Not only was that his first career playoff goal, it ended a 19-game slump that stretched back to Feb. 19.
Hey, there’s no time like the present and that’s exactly what Stone needed.
Until then, this game hadn’t really lived up to the kind of start everybody thought it would. The Bruins looked content to see if they could get chances by capitalizing on Ottawa mistakes. Anderson was forced to make a good stop with 13 minutes left on a re-direct by David Krejci that landed in his glove.
Before the end of the first, Krejci had to be helped off the ice after a leg-on-leg hit by blueliner Wideman and didn’t return.
The Senators knew the Bruins wouldn’t go quietly into the night.
“They’re going to play desperate, they’re going to play like they have nothing to lose and that’s usually the most dangerous way to play,” said captain Erik Karlsson after the morning skate.
The Senators finished the game without Stalberg, who left early with an undisclosed injury. bgarrioch@postmedia.com Twitter: @sungarrioch
They’re going to play desperate, they’re going to play like they have nothing to lose and that’s usually the most dangerous way.