The Boston Bruins started Wednesday’s Game 2 well, but the Carolina Hurricanes imposed their will and took a 2-0 series lead.
The Bruins fell 2-0 down early in the first period. Hurricanes goaltender Antti Raanta left the game after a collision with David Pastrnak. Pyotr Kochetkov came in to replace Raanta and held his own and recorded 30 saves Wednesday. Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron scored a goal in the second period to cut the game to 3-1, but it was not enough as the Hurricanes maintained their lead for a 5-2 win.
“We need a timely save. There’s no doubt about it,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “We’re closer to scoring. We scored a couple. I thought the young kid (Kochetkov) did a really good job. We could have had more than two, and to me, it’s not too little too late because it’s not, you’re on to the next city. It’s the same series, so once you start getting some confidence in, knowing you can score, the other team realizes that too, but we’re certainly going to need some timely saves.”
The Hurricanes scored two power play goals, going 2-for-9 on the man advantage. The game was dominated by physical play with a few brawls in between due to some hard hits. The Bruins were hit with 13 total penalties in Game 2.
“We got to do a better job being composed and disciplined,” Patrice Bergeron said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “Obviously, you can’t give them that many 5-on-3s. They’re gonna make you pay. I think you want to play between the whistles, and you wanna play physical and hard, but as I said, you want to make sure it’s the right way. Obviously, tonight, they’ve scored some goals on the power play. It hurt us, basically.”
Here are some more notes from Bruins-Hurricanes
— Defenseman Hampus Lindholm left the game due to an upper-body injury after a hard hit from Andrei Svechnikov. Officials reviewed the hit, and it was deemed a minor, not a major.
“He’s not doing well,” Cassidy said “It looked high to me, and that’s why he left the game. He has an upper-body injury. It was on time, certainly, but it looked high. They didn’t see it that way. Sometimes those get reviewed, sometimes they don’t.”
— Bergeron scored two goals Wednesday night, including a power play goal in the second period. The Bruins captain had a simple message on how the team will bounce back down 2-0 in the series.
“It’s playoff hockey,” Bergeron said. “You’re gonna have some adversity. For us, it’s early. Pack up to Game 3.”
— Boston outshot Carolina 38-34. However, similar to Game 1, the Bruins were not able to take advantage of scoring opportunities.
“When the tide gets shifted, like they got early on and late, and early on the other night,” Cassidy said. “We finished better than we did the other night, and that’s gotta continue as well. To me, it’s a little bit of both ends. There’s not a lot of structure on each side, I see, that’s leading to advantages of play. Their special teams were good tonight. I thought our power play was better produced, and then it comes down to discipline. We were in the (penalty) box a lot tonight, and you have to look at it and see what was warranted, what wasn’t, but that can’t continue either.
“We need to get some other lines closer to the net, finishing some plays. Bigger bodies getting in the net and second chances because their goaltenders are doing a good job stopping the first one. Some of those guys are gonna have to find their offensive game here to get a timely goal for us, as we talked earlier. If we’re not getting the timely saves, we need more timely goals, and we probably need a little bit of both.”
— The Bruins will head back home to TD Garden for Game 3 on Friday. Puck drop will be at 7 p.m. ET. The game and pregame coverage can all be watched on NESN starting at 6 p.m.
