If Bruins fans conjured up a scenario for Tuesday’s Game 2 against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the first of the back-to-back, what unfolded at Scotiabank Arena would not have been high on their list.
The Lightning threw 86 shots toward the net, 40 of which were on target, and the Bolts won the game in the first overtime, 4-3, to tie the series at a game apiece.
Now the 35-year-old Jaroslav Halak has to slap on the pads for an 8 p.m. start on Wednesday, if in fact that’s what Bruce Cassidy decides to do. But without another goalie with any NHL playoff experience, it doesn’t seem like he has much of choice.
Halak said he’d be ready to go.
“I feel fine,” said Halak, who faced 37 shots in Game 1. “Obviously we just need to get a good night’s sleep and see how it’s going to go (Wednesday). But no one said it was going to be an easy series. We’re tied now and basically from zero now. We have to forget about this one and move.”
While Halak seemed to give it the old put-me-in coach, Cassidy was going to sleep on it.
“Well, if there was 80-some attempts, he’s got to fight to see all 80. I didn’t think it was taxing night in terms of high danger chances by any means,” said Cassidy.
“We were pretty good, otherwise. We only took two penalties. Our penalty kill was solid. If you’re asking me who my starting goalie is, I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know (Wednesday).”
While the Bruins showed some dogged effort to tie the game late in the third period on Brad Marchand’s second goal of the game, the Lightning showed their own desire on the OT winner by Ondrej Palat just 4:40 into the extra session. But the B’s made some unforced errors on the winner as well.
It started when Brandon Carlo, without much pressure, tried to rim the puck out of the zone but it was knocked down by Tampa along the boards. The B’s, with the fourth line on the ice, had a couple more chances to clear it but failed. Finally, Halak had a chance to glove the puck and freeze it but it bounced off the mitt. Patrick Maroon collected and went behind the net for a wraparound attempt that Halak thwarted but the rebound went to Palat, who just beat Torey Krug’s clear attempt and swiped it home.
“We had a puck all alone behind the net and we just rimmed it to nobody. That needs to be better,” said Cassidy. “We recovered on the wall and tried to make a play through the middle, that got picked off, we didn’t get it out. I just think we need to manage the puck better in those situations. We didn’t. It has cost us at times in the playoffs. But it started with the decision to rim the puck when there wasn’t a lot of pressure. It would have been a nice time to put out a fire and make a clean play.”
Sean Kuraly, who made several terrific hustle plays and set up Marchand for the equalizer, was also on the ice for the Tampa winner.
“It’s obviously big-time frustrating any time you lose a game, especially in that fashion,” said Kuraly. “We thought we were trending in the right direction with momentum swinging our way. When you get the puck close to the blue line a couple of times and you don’t get it out against a good team, that’s what happens. It ends up in the back of your net.”
It was an entertaining, back-and-forth game, with the B’s taking two one-goal leads on tallies from Nick Ritchie and Marchand (power-play), only to see the Bolts tie it it twice on goals from Blake Coleman and Nikita Kucherov.
Then the Lightning took their first lead of the game and of the series at 10:40 of third period off another defensive breakdown. With the fourth line getting caught in deep, Coleman got behind Connor Clifton and Zdeno Chara for a partial breakaway. Clifton took a swipe from behind but Coleman got a shot off from the high slot that eluded Halak’s pads.
But the B’s were not done. With their most determined sense of purpose all night, the B’s beat the Bolts in several puck battles with Kuraly diving to win a puck at one point. David Pastrnak later beat Tyler Johnson for the puck out high and dished a backhander to Kuraly on the left side. Kuraly made a nice one-touch pass to Marchand on the right side and he slammed it home for his second of the game to tie it at 3:58 left in regulation.
“We needed a little more of that,” said Cassidy.
The only upside was that it ended early in OT. Now the B’s don’t have much turnaround time to put this one behind them. And Halak will not be the only one challenged on the back-to-back.
“The biggest challenge is the pace and slow ice makes it tougher. That’s a team that competes hard and works very hard. To play that two nights in a row is going to be a battle,” said Marchand. “But we all play back-to-backs all the time. And no excuses come playoff time. You’ve got to show up and you’ve got to play and you’ve got to find way to win. We just have to rely on the whole group (Wednesday). Everyone’s going to have to have their best game if we want to compete with that team. “
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August 26, 2020 at 10:55AM
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Bruins lose to Tampa in OT, 4-3; series 1-1 - Boston Herald
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