BOSTON — Those procrastinators in the crowd who may have put off growing their Boston Bruin playoff beard, take heart.
There’s still time to get started on the stubble.
The Bruins ensured as much, Sunday when they thumped the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-0, in their Eastern Conference semifinal tilt.
Not that there is any hirsute certainty beyond Tuesday’s Game 6 in Caniac Country.
A loss there would hasten the scraping of the ice from the TDBanknorth Center floor for the summer.
Then again, when you’re in the sort of deep doodoo the Bs are in, you take every game, heck, every shift, as though it is your last.
“There’s still a lot of pressure,” said defenseman Dennis Wideman. “We still have to go out and beat them in Carolina. That’s going to be tough. We made a step in the right direction. We have to come that much harder in Carolina.”
How would the Bs respond their predicament? A full house dressed in Black and Gold wanted ”“ make that needed ”“ to know.
They found out in a hurry.
If holding the Canes without a shot for the first 11 minutes didn’t answer their fears, then the full force pile-drive into the corner glass that Milan Lucic laid on Canes defenseman Dennis Seidenberg surely did.
It was bone-rattling hockey at its best, and was worthy of being replayed on the “Big Board” twice more from different angles.
“I just wanted to cause a turnover,” said Lucic. “The crowd got into it, and we responded after that.”
The appreciative roar let loose by the crowd grew more deafening with each showing.
That Seidenberg retaliated with a slash, and was called for it, made it even better for the Bs, since it resulted in Mark Recchi’s power play goal at 14:48.
Recchi was one of two unbothered Bruins camped out in front of Carolina goalie Cam Ward ”“ Marc Savard was the other ”“ and got his stick on Zdeno Chara’s whistler from the right point.
To that point, Boston held a 15-2 shot advantage, but soon needed two brilliant saves by Tim Thomas in one flurry ”“ on Sergei Samsonov, then on Joni Pitkanen ”“ to preserve the slim lead.
Nearly four minutes later, Phil Kessel cashed in a nifty rink-wide dish from Savard to make it 2-0.
Savard had his pick of three open teammates to pass to, but Kessel proved to be the best.
“My first option,” said Savard, was to pass to Lucic, and he did a great job of stopping in front. I looked to ”˜Z’ (Chara) and he was coming down, too. Then I was able to find Kessel back there. It was a good play by everybody. Everybody was moving.”
The Bruins had finally managed to force the nearly impenetrable Ward to move his feet from side to side, thereby creating enough space for Kessel ”“ who may become a Bruins salary cap casualty after the season (a subject for another day) ”“ to fire a medicine ball into.
Kessel had slightly less space to deposit his second goal into, which he did with authority at 4:40 of the second period.
That, too, was a sign that the Bs had chosen not to rest on its first period laurels, and instead, were reaching for the jugular.
“Obviously it’s nice,” said Kessel, who after three seasons as a professional is still painfully shy in front of the media, “to have a two-goal cushion. But you’ve got to stay aggressive throughout the game.”
The Bs did just that, wound up popping in a fourth goal (Lucic), and keeping the Trac IIs in their ditty bags for two more days, at least.
“We play for another day,” said Chara.”‚
Although the Bruins had their way for the entire evening, they, and the entire population of Bruins Nation, were forced to hold their breath when Chara was left writhing on the ice, after being slashed from behind by Carolina’s Jussi Jokinen.
All in the building feared the worst when Chara hobbled badly to the dressing room, and then again when the Bruins captain failed to appear for the start of the third period.
Their fears were allayed, however, when Chara skated out with 48 seconds gone.
Chara declined to talk about the incident, saying simply, “I’ll let the league, and the referees handle that.”
The ever loquacious Thomas, however, wasn’t shy about expressing his thoughts.
“My heart skipped a beat when he went down,” said Thomas, who was just 15 feet away from the slash. “I know he doesn’t fake things, ever. He doesn’t stay down unless he really got stung.”
Jokinen, for his part, was less than apologetic.
“I think you guys saw what happened,” he said. “It was a little tap. He was laying there for five minutes, and then he’s out playing the next shift.”
The Bruins may not have been so fortunate with Chara’s defense partner, Aaron Ward.”‚
Ward suffered a possible broken orbital bone around his left eye, when he was sucker-punched by Carolina’s Scott Walker with less than three minutes to go.
Walker will sit out Game 6 with an automatic suspension, but Ward could also miss that game, and perhaps more.
He was scheduled to be re-evaluated today.
— Contact Dan Hickling at 282-1535 ext. 318 or dhickling@gwi.net.
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