playoff berth Saturday after three short-handed goals in 64 seconds on
the same penalty powered Boston to a 4-2 victory over the Carolina
Hurricanes.
The Bruins have 89 points, good for
sixth place in the Eastern Conference, with one game remaining. They are
two points ahead of Montreal and three in front of the Rangers and
Flyers.
One of those three teams will miss the postseason.
Daniel Paille, Blake Wheeler and Steve
Begin scored short-handed goals in the second period to make it 3-0,
and Milan Lucic added an empty-netter with 1 minute left.
Tuukka Rask stopped 33 shots for
Boston.
Cam Ward made 38 saves for the
Hurricanes, who finished their season without making the playoffs one
year after reaching the Eastern Conference finals. Carolina knocked the
Bruins out of the postseason in the conference semifinals last year with
an overtime victory in Game 7 in Boston.
Fans rose to their feet and waved
yellow towels for the final 30 seconds, cheering for the team that had
come into the season with high expectations before being cut down by
injuries. A year after finishing first in the East, the Bruins had to
scrape for the final month to even make the playoffs.
They came through, winning four of
their last six games.
Needing only one more point — an
overtime loss would have done it — the Bruins erupted to break a
scoreless tie after Matt Hunwick was sent off for hooking with 18
seconds left in the first period.
Paille chased the puck down in the
Hurricanes' end and brought it across the goal mouth before shooting
back and into the net, between Ward's legs. Thirty-nine seconds later,
Wheeler scored from the slot. And then off the ensuing faceoff, Dennis
Wideman made a long pass to Begin, who put in a wrist shot from the left
circle.
The outburst was unexpected from the
Bruins, who had only scored three short-handed goals all season before
Saturday and haven't scored on their own power play in 22 tries over the
last seven games.
Only once since 1964 has an NHL team
scored four short-handed goals in a game.
Carolina came back when Erik Cole
scored on a wraparound with 5:30 left in the second period. Patrick
Dwyer made it a one-goal game on a wrist shot from the slot 2:36 later.
Boston had an apparent power-play
goal waved off with 1:20 left in the second when the referee blew the
whistle early on a loose puck.
But none of that was the strangest
part of the game.
About three minutes into the third
period, the Bruins had the puck in the Hurricanes' zone when a delayed
penalty was called and the Bruins pulled Rask. But an errant pass came out of
the zone, bounced off the boards at center ice and headed toward the
empty net.
Patrice Bergeron raced after it and
swiped it off the goal line to avert an empty-net own goal that would
have tied it 3-3.
Notes
Begin's goal was his 100th
career point. This was the first time the Bruins have had two
short-handed goals in the same penalty since Steve Kasper scored two in
Toronto on Jan. 9, 1985. … Carolina finished the season 35-37-10. But
the team that opened the season 2-12-4 had the second-most points in the
conference since midseason. … Paille's goal was his first in 22 days.