In Game No. 21, they were the Bruins' undoing.
Boston owned the league's top-ranked penalty kill coming into Friday's matinee clash with Carolina, but the Hurricanes converted all three of their power-play chances for the only goals in a 3-0 win at the Garden.
The Bruins, who also had a solid power play ranked 12th in the league before the game, couldn't match Carolina's production, failing to score on four opportunities with the man-advantage.
"Our special teams were unacceptable tonight," said Bruins coach Claude Julien. "And that's basically the story of the game today.
"The power play's supposed to, if they don't score, give you momentum," added Julien. "Although at the end it got a little better, when we really needed it in the second period we didn't make good plays. Your best players should be able to execute tape-to-tape passes and that wasn't happening."
The Bruins didn't even manage a shot on goal in their first two power-play opportunities. They had a chance to tie the game when they trailed just 1-0 and Erik Cole was sent off for interference at 7:01 of the second, but struggled to even set up in the Carolina zone.
Boston's effort when Brandon Sutter went off for holding at 15:41 of the second wasn't any better. That came after Carolina extended the lead to 2-0, but the Bruins again failed to put a shot on goal on the power play as they tried to cut into the lead.
The Bruins did manage six shots on back-to-back power plays in the third that overlapped for a brief four-second two-man advantage, but Carolina goalie Cam Ward (37 saves) was up to the challenge.
"I think the first couple we weren't gaining [the zone], but then we started to near the end," said Bruins forward Nathan Horton, part of Boston's top power-play unit. "The last couple power plays, we had great entry. You know, [we've] just got to set up and get pucks in the net. The pucks were bouncing everywhere and we tried to hit them. Obviously, we needed a power-play goal tonight."
The Hurricanes got all the power-play production they needed, albeit not in the most traditional methods.
Their first goal came after the Bruins actually had a short-handed odd-man break. But Daniel Paille, playing because rookie Jordan Caron was out with the flu, coughed up the puck. Joe Corvo took control and sent Tuomo Ruutu and Jeff Skinner off on a 2-on-1 the other way, with Skinner finishing it with a crushing goal with just 15.8 seconds left in the first period.
"We were all over them and then they get that goal and it really stings you a bit," said Bruins forward Brad Marchand. "They take the momentum away and that's a big part of the game — momentum."
Carolina struck again midway through the second when Ruutu deflected an Ian White point shot past Tim Thomas as Eric Staal provided a screen in front. Staal also set up the final power-play goal in the third, as he fell in front, but still managed to send a pass on to Jussi Jokinen for the goal.
"They were messed up situations," said Thomas of Carolina's power-play goals. "The first one was a turnover in their zone. The second one was a really long shift for our D and Staal was doing a good job screening out front, but every power play has a guy who's trying to screen out front. The third one, Staal again was out front and somehow the puck went to him on his butt and the pass [went] behind his back, passed through a crowd of people and I couldn't pick up who he was passing it to because there was a screen. There's so many people in front and [the puck] ended up right on Jokinen's stick. So I don't think any of them were planned plays."
Planned or not, they were effective, and Boston's penalty killers have to be able to stop the improvised plays as well as the set-pieces.
"Your penalty kill is supposed to bail you out," said Julien. "They've done a pretty good job throughout the year, but tonight when you give them three goals on three attempts, that's not acceptable. And progressively the rest of our game just seemed to fall apart. Sometimes those kinds of things take momentum away from your team and you end up suffering after that."
The Bruins haven't had to worry about their penalty killing all year, as it had been nearly perfect. Boston allowed just seven goals on 74 chances before Friday's games, including only three on 33 opportunities at home.
"It's tough to put a finger on it," said Marchand. "Our PK has been one of our strong points. It's frustrating when they get three power-play goals in the game. We didn't do our job and that's part of it. You can say there were a couple bounces there, but at the end of the day we just didn't do our job."
Marchand is confident the Bruins can regain their form on the PK, but he also knows performances like Friday are not acceptable.
"We all love playing on the PK, we all love killing penalties," said Marchand. "To win games you have to kill penalties. There are going to be days when you do better than others, but there's no time when you want to accept three goals on the power play."
