Final, Bruins 3-2: The Bruins just keep on doing it. This time, it’s Brad Marchand.
The forward went straight to the net on a rush, Patrice Bergeron hit him with a beautiful pass and the B’s win.
Overtime, 10:51, 2-2: Johnny Boychuk has twice had the chance to win this game, and both times he hit the post.
Boychuk almost ended it in overtime, but the puck caught the post to Henrik Lundqvist’s right and we play on.
The Bruins are outshooting New York in overtime 11-2 so far.
Overtime, 5:00, 2-2: The Bruins got a ton of chances, but they didn’t score on the power play. That was two minutes of domination.
Overtime, 2:20, 2-2: Here’s something rare. An overtime penalty.
The B’s go on the power play after Derek Dorsett is called for interference.
Overtime, 0:01, 0:00: For the second time this week, overtime has begun.
End third period, 2-2: Whoa.
The Bruins really brought it in the final moments of the third period, and they did everything but score on the power play. The B’s got a couple of really good chances, but one of those was slowed by a fearless Dan Girardi just throwing himself around the ice blocking shots.
Johnny Boychuk had a chance of his own at the buzzer, but the defenseman hit the post with an absolute blast from the right point.
Third period, 17:51, 2-2: With 25 seconds left in the power play, the man-advantage ends for New York, and not with a goal.
John Moore was just called for interference, and that ends the power play, and it will give the B’s 1:35 of a power play once 4-on-4 play ends.
Third period, 16:16, 2-2: The Bruins will have to kill off yet another penalty.
This time it’s because Patrice Bergeron was just called for hooking.
Third period, 14:32, 2-2: Tuukka Rask gave up that goal early in the period, but he’s been rock solid since. He just made a nice blocker save on Steve Eminger as the New York defenseman jumped on a puck in the Boston zone and put it on net.
Matt Bartkowski continues to have a nice night. After breaking a stick in the neutral zone, Bartkowski just did the only thing he could do to slow the rush — deck Rick Nash with a body check in open ice. Good stuff so far from the Boston rookie.
Third period, 8:38, 2-2: The Bruins are turning it on here in the third period, and the pace of play is certainly picking up.
David Krejci just had a brilliant chance as he stickhandled through the slot and then put a shot toward the net that beat Henrik Lundqvist, but the puck hit the crossbar. The Bruins are certainly buzzing right now, and they’re getting chances.
Third period, 2:55, 2-2: Scoring. So much scoring.
Torey Krug makes the Rangers pay for the penalty, as he just scored his first career playoff goal. He beat Henrik Lundqivst with a shot from just above the left circle.
Third period, 1:09, Rangers 2-1: The Bruins will get a chance to tie it up on the power play.
Steve Eminger was called for holding.
Third period, 0:14, Rangers 2-1: That didn’t take long.
Derek Stepan just scored to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead. We talked about potential momentum, and apparently it did carry over, with the second Rangers goal in 15.3 seconds of game time.
Second period reaction: That’s not the way the Bruins wanted to end the period, not one bit. That could prove to be an absolutely crippling goal, especially if the Rangers are able to sustain momentum through the intermission and into the third period.
Both teams were able to get on the board there in the second period, and both teams did it with kind of fluky goals. Again, expect that to continue to throughout the entire series. These teams are just too good on the blue line to fall apart defensively. On that now, however, it was bizarre to see Henrik Lundqvist give up a relatively soft goal. He should have had Zdeno Chara’s shot from the point, but he just couldn’t control it, and the puck squeezed through.
At the other end, it was defensive breakdowns, poor puck management and an inability to clear the zone that led to Ryan McDonagh’s goal. Tyler Seguin, who hasn’t been anything spectacular through two periods, coughed it up, and it cost the B’s dearly.
Second period, 19:58, 1-1: The Bruins couldn’t clear their own zone in the final seconds of the period, and it cost them.
Ryan McDonagh beat Tuukka Rask from the left point up over the goalie’s left shoulder with just 1.3 seconds to play in the period.
We’ll go to the intermission tied 1-1.
Second period, 16:13, Bruins 1-0: The Bruins were able to kill off the penalty with relative ease.
Second period, 13:52, Bruins 1-0: Shortly after the goal, the Bruins have to go back on the penalty kill.
Adam McQuaid was just called for interference, and the PK is back out on the ice.
Second period, 12:23, Bruins 1-0: Henrik Lundqvist may be one of the best in the game, but even he makes mistakes. That’s the case here, and the Bruins lead 1-0 because of it.
Lundqvist couldn’t quite close the pads on a Zdeno Chara slap shot form the point, and the puck eventually trickles through. Nathan Horton definitely helped it along.
Second period, 11:56, 0-0: The Bruins did a good job of coming out of that TV timeout and reversing the momentum some.
They just got a couple of good shifts, and that led to arguably the club’s best chance of the second period. Zdeno Chara put a shot toward the net from the point that looked to be tipped in the high slot by Nathan Horton. Either way, Henrik Lundqvist made the save.
The Bruins also just got another solid shift out of the Patrice Bergeron line, but blocked shots slowed that down.
Second period, 9:39, 0-0: The Bruins killed off the penalty, and we finally get a TV timeout a few minutes later after whistle-less play.
The Rangers are starting to pressure the B’s a little bit both with the power play and the few minutes that followed. They’re getting in the forecheck, and they’re also making it pretty difficult for the Bruins to get the puck through the neutral zone.
Second period, 4:38, 0-0: Zdeno Chara was just called for hooking, which means the Rangers will get a power play of their own now.
Second period, 4:26, 0-0: As far as Bruins power plays go, that was one of the better ones that didn’t end with a goal.
The B’s got a couple of good chances including shots from the right wing from both Tyler Seguin and David Krejci, but one hit the side of the net and the other was stopped.
Second period, 2:22, 0-0: The Bruins get the first power play of the night, but it might have come out at a price.
Tyler Pyatt is going off for boarding after planting Johnny Boychuk in the corner. Boychuk was definitely shaken up, but it looks like he’ll stay on the bench for now.
The Bruins have a chance to grab the lead on the power play now.
Second period, 0:01, 0-0: The second period is underway, and Michael Del Zotto is back for the Rangers. He took a puck up near the head after blocking a Patrice Bergeron shot in the first and he left the ice. He’s good to go now apparently.
First period reaction: Did you miss the first period? If so, you didn’t miss much at all.
The Bruins and Rangers are scoreless through one, which really isn’t that much of a surprise given the way these two teams play. It’s really all about defense, which may make these head coaches happy, but it doesn’t make for the most entertaining hockey.
With it being scoreless, it must mean that the Bruins’ young D-men are doing at least a decent job, right? Yeah, pretty much. They’ve all been good enough, and I’ve been especially impressed with Matt Bartkowski. He’s already seen 8:17 of ice time, which is second only to Zdeno Chara on either team through 20 minutes. Torey Krug has been decent, and he showed a willingness to get a little nasty when he dumped the much bigger Brian Boyle into the Boston cage after a whistle.
The Rangers have been just as good, if not better defensively. Henrik Lundqvist is still one of the best goalies on the planet, and he extended his shutout streak to 140:00 with a scoreless first. The Rangers helped that along by blocking 10 shots in the first, but the Bruins do lead in shots 11-8 through one.
End first period, 0-0: The first period just came to an end with a flurry of activity at the New York net. It was the Patrice Bergeron line that put some pucks near the net, but they just couldn’t break through to really get anything on net. Get used to that in this series.
First period, 13:09, 0-0: The Bruins should maybe be trailing 1-0 right now, but Tuukka Rask just got some help from the crossbar.
Michael Del Zotto beat the Bruins goalie with a wrist shot from the left point that beat Rask gloveside, but the puck found iron instead of the back of the net.
The Rangers got another chance shortly thereafter when Zdeno Chara coughed up the puck in his own zone. He and Dougie Hamilton have struggled to get the puck out of their own end so far, and it almost cost them there.
The Bruins have just five shots on goal through the first 13 minutes or so.
First period, 6:29, 0-0: Goals are expected to be at a premium in this series, and so far, that’s been the case, albeit just a few minutes in.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Bruins’ defensemen — especially the younger guys — and they’ve done a good job so far. Matt Bartkowski looks like he’s getting confidence with every shift in these playoffs.
Meanwhile, the Boston fourth line is doing its job in the early going, getting in there with good, hard forechecks, and they’ve created the best chance for either team so far.
First period, 0:01, 0-0: The game is on.
7:13 p.m.: The Bruins are going to go with the same lines as they did in Game 7, per warmups, as are the Rangers.
Here are the Bruins’ defensive pairings.
Zdeno Chara — Dougie Hamilton
Matt Bartkowski — Johnny Boychuk
Adam McQuaid — Torey Krug
7 p.m.: The Bruins just took the ice for pregame warmups. Unsurprisingly, they’re without Andrew Ference, Dennis Seidenberg and Wade Redden.
Brad Marchand is out there as well.
6:45 p.m.: Welcome to TD Garden where it is really cold up here on Level 9, which is press level. That makes sense, given that it’s about 85 degrees outside, so it’s pretty important to keep things cold in here to preserve the integrity of the ice. Say what you want about the new Garden, but at least we’re pretty sure the warm temperatures won’t lead to something like this happening again.
We’re about 15 minutes from pregame skate, so we’ll give an update once that begins when we should at the very least confirm our suspicions about the Game 1 lineup.
4:45 p.m.: The Rangers are going to block a ton of shots in this series. There’s no other way around it. That’s what they do under head coach John Tortorella, and don’t expect it to stop any time soon. They blocked 161 shots in the first round, which was 20 more than the next team, which was coincidentally the Maple Leafs.
“Got to find ways to get pucks to the net,” Claude Julien said after morning skate. “Just got to keep your head up when you’re shooting. They’re going to block shots no matter what. We just got to do the best we can do get them on net. When they don’t, well, they can block them and what can I do?
“As a team, you’re going to get some shots blocked because they like doing it. We’re just going to do our best to get them through and make sure they get to the net, and hopefully get some net-front traffic. That’s going to make things a little tougher for their goaltender, that’s not a secret.”
2:30 p.m.: The Rangers haven’t gotten any real good news in terms of some pretty rough injuries. Forwards Ryane Clowe and Darroll Powe are still out with suspected concussions, as is defenseman Marc Staal who remains out with his eye injury.
Here are the lines the Rangers used at practice Wednesday and again at morning skate on Thursday, per NorthJersey.com.
Carl Hagelin — Derek Stepan — Ryan Callahan
Rick Nash — Derick Brassard — Mats Zuccarello
Taylor Pyatt — Brian Boyle — Derek Dorsett
Chris Kreider — Brad Richards — Arron Asham
Ryan McDonagh — Anton Stralman
Dan Girardi — Michael Del Zotto
John Moore — Steve Eminger
2:11 p.m.: The Bruins, as discussed a little earlier, had to make some changes because of their injuries on the blue line. They showed those off at morning skate.
The B’s also used the same lines Thursday morning that they did Wednesday at practice. Here are the lines and D-pairs.
Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Nathan Horton
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Jaromir Jagr
Rich Peverley — Chris Kelly — Tyler Seguin
Daniel Paille — Gregory Campbell — Shawn Thornton
Zdeno Chara — Dougie Hamilton
Matt Bartkowski — Johnny Boychuk
Torey Krug — Adam McQuaid
12:17 p.m.: While Marchand is likely playing on Thursday night, the availability of the trio of injured D-men (Seidenberg, Ference, Redden) “doesn’t look good,” according to Julien. -JB
12 p.m.: Brad Marchand will be playing on Thursday night, says head coach Claude Julien, despite the winger leaving morning skate early. Marchand left the ice just 20 minutes in, “wincing in pain,” in what appeared to be an injury. -JB
9 a.m. ET: Believe it or not, the Bruins did not win the Stanley Cup with their Game 7 overtime win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday night at TD Garden. Far from it, actually.
While the comeback and thrilling OT win was something no one will soon forget, all it really did was get the Bruins through one round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. They’ll get a pretty stern reminder of that Thursday night when the B’s open their second-round series with the No. 6 seeded New York Rangers.
The B’s and Blueshirts are no strangers to each other. They met three times this season, with the Rangers winning twice. Those two wins, however, came in overtime, so the two teams actually both got four points out of the three meetings. After struggling in the season’s first couple of months, the Rangers turned it on late in the season, going 9-2-1 after the trade deadline to make the playoffs. They got a tough test in the first round as well where they had to go seven games to dispatch the No. 3 Washington Capitals. New York used shutouts in Games 6 and 7 from Henrik Lundqvist to win the series.
You can get a full preview of the Bruins-Rangers series by clicking here.
Puck drop from TD Garden is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
