Bruins squeeze life out of Hawks
Boston’s machine- like play grinds down Chicago’s efforts to solve Rask
It couldn’t be a coin flip forever, could it? No Stanley Cup Final had gone to overtime in each of the first three games since 1951 and while the first two games here became as close as games get, more or less, they didn’t have to be. Boston blew a 3- 1 third- period lead in Game 1; Chicago squandered a one- sided first period in Game 2; both games came down to a single play at the conclusion of a long and breathtaking series of them, like checkers piled up until the tower fell.
This time, the Boston Bruins pushed their checkers one way and glued Chicago’s to the table, and the result was a 2- 0 win in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final for a 2- 1 series lead. Maybe it only felt more onesided because of the overtime hangover. But it looked familiar, too. The Bruins machine has been cranked back up after chewing up Pittsburgh and it ate Chicago up.
“I mean, they shot high shots from off the wing and I was able to just catch a lot of them with my glove,” said Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask, who made 28 saves and who now has a playoff save percentage of .946. “Then a few loose pucks were laying around there. Our D or forwards took care of that.”
Rask was as casual as a lemonade stand, cool as a snake. Twice in the first two periods a Chicago star had one side of the ice to himself and both times they were outguessed. In the first, Duncan Keith walked in from the point and tried a shot fake or two, but Rask just stared at him like Keith was threatening to call his mother and Keith’s pass was deflected away. Nearly eight minutes into the second, Patrick Kane, who was a knife unthrown for most of the night, received a slap pass and cut toward the net, but he waited, waited, and popped a little soft shot as Patrice Bergeron closed on him. Rask is so hard to beat and the machine in front of him is making his life easier.
“I think it’s the energy in the game, the effort,” said Bruins coach Claude Julien. “You see our guys, they’re backchecking, having layers, so when somebody makes a mistake, you have somebody covering up. We’re blocking a lot of shots. The commitment is totally there. Throughout a whole season, it’s not easy to have that full commitment. But I think when you get to this stage, players start feeling it. They go above and beyond.”
The result is a team that has allowed 17 goals since the first round of the playoffs, when they somehow allowed 18 to the Toronto Maple Leafs. They were helped by a hot day in Boston and some lousy ice, too. As Bruins defenceman Dennis Seidenberg put it, “you try to shoot, try to swing your blade on the ice, it feels like it’s sandpaper. It’s really rough. When you try to pass, the puck bounces. That’s why you have to keep the game simple.”
That is what the Bruins like — simple hockey, muck hockey. They won 40 of 56 faceoffs, possessed the puck and got their first goal from suddenly famous grinder Daniel Paille, who set up a goal in Game 2 and scored the overtime winner. Two minutes into the second period, Paille lifted Dave Bolland’s stick like a pickpocket, then wheeled and fired the puck over Corey Crawford’s glove, which seems to handle everyone else just fine.
Boston added a second goal as a 5- on- 3 expired, as Jaromir Jagr feathered a pass through the air across the front of the net and Bergeron scored to make it 2- 0 with 5: 55 left in the second period.
“I’m not that fast anymore, but I still can see,” said Jagr. “My hands are still there. Give me some credit.”
Before the game even began, though, a critical piece was removed from the board.
Marian Hossa, Chicago’s big and brilliant forward, was a late scratch with an upper- body injury.
Boston avoided a similar fate when Zdeno Chara and Milan Lucic collided in the warm- up like two freight trains put on the same track. Chara reportedly needed stitches.
But Chara played, and Hossa didn’t, and there was your coin flip in a series full of them. The Blackhawks have not scored a power- play goal since Game 2 of the Western Conference final and the Bruins penalty kill has not allowed one since Game 5 of the second round.
The Bruins blew a two- goal lead in game 1; this time they were a python, and Chicago was an unlucky mammal. Chicago hit a post late, but that was it. This remains a close series, with stories left to tell. But the Bruins have found their suffocation hold and finally got a chance to squeeze.