Final, Bruins 4-1: That’s it, and that’s all. The Bruins were able to bounce back, make the most of their chances and tie this series with a 4-1 win in Game 2.
The series now shifts back to Detroit where these two clubs will play a pretty important Game 3 on Tuesday night at Joe Louis Arena.
Third period, 17:30, Bruins 4-1: The Detroit net is empty.
Third period, 16:52, Bruins 4-1: The Bruins are using their timeout after the fourth line ices the puck and is forced to stay on the ice.
Third period, 16:15, Bruins 4-1: Coming out of the most recent timeout, the Bruins were able to slow the Red Wings’ push some. The B’s seem pretty content with just dumping pucks in deep and getting in hard on the forecheck. The Boston first line — most notably wingers Jarome Iginla and Milan Lucic — just did a really good job of that, as they continue to throw their weight around and try to wear down the Red Wings.
Third period, 11:36, Bruins 4-1: The Red Wings have really started to up the pressure on the Bruins, and that has lead to increased offensive zone time for Detroit. The Wings are now outshooting the Bruins 32-28 and 9-4 here in the third period.
Unfortunately for the Red Wings, Tuukka Rask is in net for the Bruins. He just easily gloved a Danny DeKeyser wrist shot from just inside the blue line to keep the Wings at one.
Third period, 6:35, Bruins 4-1: Tuukka Rask hasn’t been called on to make many highlight-reel saves, but he did just have a nice sequence of saves here in the third period. Rask made two stops on Kyle Quincey, including a real nice pad save in front to keep the three-goal lead intact.
Third period, 2:33, Bruins 4-1: The Bruins’ power play has connected yet again, and Boston has a three-goal lead.
Zdeno Chara jammed in a power-play goal as he stuck with the puck on a second chance in front.
Third period, 2:10, Bruins 3-1: The Bruins are goign on the power play again. This time it’s after Kyle Quincey was called for roughing after giving David Krejci a punch to the head as they battled along the boards.
Third period, 0:01, Bruins 3-1: The third period is underway.
Second period reaction: After a tremendous first period, the Bruins were held pretty much in check in the second period where the game looked a lot like it did in Game 1. The Red Wings started to possess the puck a lot more — helped along by some power plays as well — and spent a lot of time in the Boston end. The Wings finally broke through with a fluky goal, which is what happens if you’re able to have the puck a lot and maximize chances.
That being said, the Bruins did get that late goal from Milan Lucic, which could be pretty big heading into the third period. The B’s have to hope that sparks the first line and gets them going. At the very least, though, it canceled out the Detroit goal and lets the Bruins head into the third period in a very winnable position.
End second period, Bruins 3-1: The second period has come to a close, and Boston takes the 3-1 lead to the dressing room. The Bruins are currently outshooting Detroit 24-23 through 40 minutes.
Second period, 18:16, Bruins 3-1: The Bruins have pushed the lead back to two here late in the second period, and it’s Milan Lucic who does the honors.
Lucic worked the give-and-go to perfection with Jarome Iginla, and Lucic was able to just barely get the puck by Jimmy Howard to give Boston the 3-1 lead.
Second period, 17:22, Bruins 2-1: The Bruins did some more good work on the penalty kill, and they have killed off the latest Detroit power play.
Second period, 15:22, Bruins 2-1: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Detroit is going back on the power play.
This time it’s because Dougie Hamilton got his stick in Pavel Datsyuk’s skates, and Hamilton is going to have to sit for two minutes.
Second period, 13:20, Bruins 2-1: The Red Wings have slowly but surely started to crawl back into this game, and they’re now within a goal.
Luke Glendening is going to get credited with the goal after the puck bounced off him and by Tuukka Rask for Detroit’s first goal of the game.
Second period, 13:00, Bruins 2-0: The Bruins have killed off the penalty once again, and they’re back to full strength.
Second period, 10:55, Bruins 2-0: The Red Wings are getting another power play after a kind of head-scratching play by Kevan Miller. The Boston defenseman just decided to drop David Legwand in front of the Boston net, and that earned Miller a cross-checking penalty.
Second period, 7:18, Bruins 2-0: The Bruins were able to kill off the Loui Eriksson penalty without a whole lot of resistance from the Red Wings. The Detroit power play has not been very good at all so far, and they haven’t been able to build any sort of momentum off of that.
Second period, 5:11, Bruins 2-0: It’s been a strong start to the period for the Bruins, but they’re going to have to kill off a penalty. Loui Eriksson just hooked Daniel Alfredsson, and the Red Wings have a power play.
Second period, 0:01, Bruins 2-0: The second period is underway. Zdeno Chara and Brendan Smith will start the second in the penalty box after picking up matching roughing minors at the 20-minute mark of the first.
First period reaction: That’s about as good of a first period as you can ask for if you’re a Bruins fan. Most importantly, the Bruins were able to get on the board, as they broke through with their first two goals of the series. Justin Florek did his job, as he was getting in on the forecheck and took full advantage of a major flub from Jimmy Howard and Brendan Smith. The B’s also get credit for cashing in on the power play for their second goal. Loui Eriksson did a great job of keeping the puck alive and getting traffic in front of Howard. That allowed Reilly Smith to jump in behind Howard and jam home the second goal.
The B’s were also able to get a little bit nasty in the first period. For whatever reason, the Red Wings were willing to get a little tough with the Bruins, a development that favors the Bruins in a big, big way. You’ve gotta think that Mike Babcock is going to try and make sure his team stays away from that kind of stuff moving forward.
Finally, this, from the Zdeno Chara-Brendan Smith skirmish at the end of the period.
End first period, Bruins 2-0: The first period just came to an end, and tempers were flaring. Zdeno Chara and Brendan Smith came this close to dropping the gloves, or at least it looked that way. Wasn’t the case, though. Not surprising, either, as Chara would’ve likely dominated that battle completely.
First period, 18:48, Bruins 2-0: Just had a big post-whistle scrum right in the Detroit crease that resulted in a few penalties, but no power plays. Tomas Tatar, Danny DeKeyser, Dougie Hamilton and Brad Marchand all picked up minor penalties that will offset after their roles in the brouhaha.
First period, 14:45, Bruins 2-0: After some harmful puck possession issues in Game 1, the Bruins have owned the puck in Game 2. The B’s almost added a third goal when Milan Lucic came screaming down the right wing and put a shot on net that was stopped by Jimmy Howard. Lucic was able to win the rebound and get the puck into the slot for a shot from Johnny Boychuk that Howard somehow got a blocker on despite a lot of traffic in front of him.
The Bruins are outshooting Detroit 13-6 so far.
First period, 10:35, Bruins 2-0: The Bruins are alive and well.
Reilly Smith just snapped a goal-scoring drought in a big, big way. He got into the crease behind Jimmy Howard and jammed home a loose puck for the power-play goal, which has TD Garden absolutely rocking now.
First period, 9:54, Bruins 1-0: The Bruins are going to get 21 seconds of a 5-on-3, and then they’ll continue on another power play. Danny Dekeyser was just called for slashing, and the B’s will look to cash in.
First period, 8:15, Bruins 1-0: The Bruins’ third line looked like it was shot out of a cannon after Justin Florek’s goal, and it leads to another Boston power play.
Jakub Kindl was called for tripping, and the B’s will go back to work on the power play.
First period, 7:28, Bruins 1-0: That’s one way to get the offense going.
Jimmy Howard got a little carried away with trying to play a puck out of the net. He passed it to Brendan Smith, who couldn’t handle the pass. Justin Florek was there to take full advantage of that mistake, and he put the puck into the vacated net for the Bruins’ first goal of the series.
First period, 5:30, 0-0: The Bruins power play is over, and they didn’t get much of anything generated on the man-advantage.
First period, 3:21, 0-0: With 11 seconds left in the Detroit power play, things were evened up. The Bruins had what looked to be n odd-man shorthanded rush in the works, but that was slowed by Tomas Tatar, as he hooked Zdeno Chara.
It will be 11 seconds of 4-on-4 play before the Bruins get their first power play of the day.
First period, 1:32, 0-0: The Red Wings will get an early power play. Shawn Thornton just picked up a holding penalty.
First period, 0:01, 0-0: And we’re off. Game 2 is underway.
3 p.m.: Kevan Miller is officially back in the lineup for the Bruins. Corey Potter is the healthy scratch, and the B’s are still without Matt Bartkowski, Daniel Paille and Chris Kelly.
2:49 p.m.: It appears that Kevan Miller will be back in the Bruins’ lineup for Game 2.
The rookie defenseman took all of the pregame line rushes, which is usually a good indicator that he’ll be a go. He was taking his rushes with Andrej Meszaros, and it looks like Corey Potter will be the odd man out after playing in Game 1.
Here are the rest of the Bruins’ projected lines and defensive pairings, based off of the pregame line rushes.
Milan Lucic — David Krejci — Jarome Iginla
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — Reilly Smith
Justin Florek — Carl Soderberg — Loui Eriksson
Jordan Caron — Gregory Campbell — Shawn Thornton
Zdeno Chara — Johnny Boychuk
Andrej Meszaros — Kevan Miller
Torey Krug — Dougie Hamilton
2:41 p.m.: The pregame warmups are underway, and it’s not much of a surprise, but Chris Kelly and Daniel Paille are still absent. That means they’re out once again. So, too, is Matt Bartkowski, as Claude Julien said earlier.
Kevan Miller is back on the ice, and is a game-time decision, Julien announced earlier. The other six defensemen are on the ice as well.
1:53 p.m.: Claude Julien is done with his pregame media availability. Matt Bartkowski is out for the Bruins, while Kevan Miller and the other Boston defensemen will take the warmup and the B’s will make the decision after that.
1:45 p.m.: Detroit head coach Mike Babcock wrapped up his short pregame media availability a little while ago. The Wings bench boss talked for about two minutes about a whole lot of nothing, really. He did say that he’ll have the same lineup on the ice for pregame warmups, but things could change for the in-game lineup. He said a lot has changed since the last time he met with the media, which could just be a line of bull. We won’t know for sure for another hour or so.
Babcock also talked about how he had a nice little Saturday in Boston. He said he had lunch at The Four’s and spent some time in the North End where he couldn’t get into any restaurants for dinner. Also praised the city. On his way out, he wished the media a Happy Easter.
Luckily, just about an hour and a half until puck drop.
1 p.m.: Pregame media availability with the Bruins just wrapped up, as Shawn Thornton, Brad Marchand and Torey Krug all took turns fielding questions from reporters.
Here are some of the highlights.
Thornton on a team like Detroit keeping away from upsetting the Bruins as to not “piss off” the B’s, which usually leads to improved play from Boston: “I don’t know if anyone wants to piss us off. It shouldn’t matter. we’ve gotta play our game no matter what they’re doing on the other side. That means bringing emotion and intensity. We’ve gotta be physical and we’ve gotta play the game, too. I don’t think that changes depending on the opponent. … I don’t think it matters who’s on the other side. It’s playoff time, we should be playing our game. ”
More Thornton on playing in a series with a little less animosity than they’re used to: “You don’t need that. Everyone talks about it because of the way we’re built that we play better when we’re a little pissed off, but it’s playoff hockey. If you can’t get yourself going, there’s something wrong. You shouldn’t need a ton of animosity to motivate yourself this time of year.”
Marchand on playing a Detroit team that doesn’t like to get involved with the rough stuff after the whistle: “That’s not really the game they play. They’re more of a finesse team. It’s pretty clear to every other team in the league that when we get riled up we play better. I’m sure that’s in the back of their mind, but like I said, it’s not really the kind of game they play. … We have to find a way to get a little more involved.”
Marchand on his developing rivalry with Detroit defenseman Brendan Smith, brother of Marchand’s linemate Reilly Smith: “His brother plays, he seems to be playing against our line a lot. He’s on my side a lot so I go up against him quite a bit. He plays pretty hard, he plays physical and he battles hard. I got the inside scoop that he doesn’t like me very much. It just makes it a little more fun to balance out there.”
12 p.m.: Things didn’t go as planned for the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of their first-round Stanley Cup playoffs series with the Detroit Red Wings, and the B’s will try to right the ship on Easter Sunday.
The B’s and Wings will drop the puck on Game 2 on Sunday afternoon where the Bruins will look to even the series after dropping a 1-0 heartbreaker in Game 1 on Friday night at TD Garden. Boston and Detroit played each other evenly for about 57 minutes, which is when Red Wings superstar Pavel Datsyuk broke through with the game’s lone goal.
The obvious focal point for the Bruins entering Game 2 will be to try and generate some more offense. Boston was able to get 25 shots on goal, but Claude Julien’s bunch wasn’t generating much in legitimate scoring chances. Detroit did a real good job of keeping bodies out of the slot and away from Jimmy Howard, which allowed the goalie to earn the shutout in the series opener.
In order to get better scoring chances, the Bruins will have to find a way to have the puck on their sticks more often as well. The Red Wings controlled the puck for long periods of time during Game 1, and while the B’s outshot the Wings, Detroit won more faceoffs and attempted more shots, two positive check marks in the puck possession battle.
I know we have to get more pucks to the net, I know we need net front presence, that’s something that always needs to be done,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said after practice Saturday. “But overall I think there are certain things that we are going to adjust for (Sunday) that we hope will help us but at the same time, scoring chances they were low on both sides. So I think defensively, both sides did a good job. It’s about finding ways to create more offense and that is what we looked at this morning, that is what we discussed and that’s what we tried to work on a little bit.”
The Bruins may also get some reinforcements for Game 2. In total, four Boston regulars — Daniel Paille, Chris Kelly, Matt Bartkowski and Kevan Miller — missed Game 1. Both Miller and Bartkowski practiced Saturday, which means they could be back in the fold on Sunday. Julien will meet with the media shortly before puck drop, which is when we might get a better idea of what his lineup looks like.
Puck drop from the Garden is scheduled for 3 p.m.
