Playoffs - Sun, 20 May - Results

NY Rangers v Boston 2-5 - Game 2 - The Boston Bruins surged again. The New York Rangers couldn't stop them. The Bruins came with speed and scored the last three goals Sunday at TD Garden, including two in the third period, to turn what was a tight Game 2 into a 5-2 victory. Boston got goals from five players, including another one from rookie defenseman Torey Krug, to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Semifinals. Game 3 is Tuesday at Madison Square Garden (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, TSN, RDS), where the Rangers are 3-0 at home in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They won Games 3 and 4 against the Washington Capitals after losing the first two on the road, and Game 6. Boston was 2-1 on the road against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Bruins scored their last three goals Sunday because of their quick transition game, the same style they used to dominate overtime in Game 1 before Marchand scored the winning goal. Defenseman Johnny Boychuk netted the game-winner Sunday with a glove-side wrist shot from the top of the right circle at 12:08 of the second period after Marchand quickly took the puck into the offensive zone and waited for Boychuk to join him. Patrice Bergeron darted to the net and got in front of Rangers defenseman Dan Girardi to act as a screen for goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who went down into his butterfly but never reacted with his glove. Marchand scored 26 seconds into the third period when he and Bergeron attacked the Rangers on a 2-on-2. Bergeron went wide on defenseman Michael Del Zotto and Marchand got inside position on Girardi, enabling Bergeron to find his stick with a centering pass that led to a redirect past Lundqvist and a 4-2 lead. The goal was similar to Marchand's overtime winner in Game 1. Milan Lucic made it 5-2 at 12:39 of the third because defenseman Dougie Hamilton rushed through the defensive zone and into the neutral zone with speed. He allowed Lucic to gain the offensive zone with a similar burst. Lucic fed David Krejci in the middle, but he missed the shot and the puck went off his skate, bouncing wide right of the net. Lucic found the loose puck and tucked it inside the right post after Girardi slid right past him. Girardi was on the ice for all five Bruins goals. When the Rangers tried to surge in the second period, Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask was a difference-maker with 15 saves, including five after Boychuk scored. Rask was beaten only by Rick Nash, who tied the game at 2-2 at 3:20 with his first goal of the playoffs. The Rangers again burned themselves by not converting on the power play. They were 0-for-5 with seven shots on goal Sunday. They are 0-for-8 against Boston and 2-for-36 in the playoffs.

After delivering the Rangers back-to-back shutout wins with a combined 62 saves in Games 6 and 7 against the Capitals, Lundqvist has allowed eight goals on 80 shots in the first two games against the Bruins. He faced 32 shots in Game 2. Lundqvist continued to say he didn't think the Rangers made the Bruins work too hard to score some of the goals. The point was backed up by his coach, John Tortorella, who said he thought the goals scored by Boychuk and Marchand were "defendable." Lundqvist kept the deficit at two goals with 9:28 left in the third period when he made a sprawling save on Jaromir Jagr, who had a wide-open look from the right post. The Bruins kept coming and again used their transition game to take a three-goal lead on Lucic's first of the series.

 

Pittsburgh v Ottawa 1-2 2OT - Game 3 - With the Ottawa Senators' playoff lives flashing before their eyes, the never-say-die team found yet another way to win Sunday night. Captain Daniel Alfredsson made sure of it. Alfredsson tied the game with a shorthanded goal with 28.6 seconds remaining in regulation, and Colin Greening won it with a goal at 7:39 of the second overtime to give the Senators a 2-1 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Instead of being down 3-0, the Senators trail the best-of-7 series 2-1 with Game 4 Wednesday night at Scotiabank Place (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, CBC, RDS). When a slashing penalty was called on Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson at 18:33 of the third period, it appeared the powerhouse Penguins would coast to a commanding series lead. But with Ottawa goaltender Craig Anderson, who finished with 49 saves in another stellar performance, on the bench for an extra attacker, the Penguins somehow left the greatest player in Senators history all alone in front of their net. Milan Michalek saw Alfredsson cruising in front and put a wrist shot toward him, allowing the Senators' all-time leading scorer to tip the puck into the top corner past goalie Tomas Vokoun, sending the sellout crowd of 20,500 into a state of delirium moments after they thought they were witnessing what would have virtually amounted to the end of their team's season. After a back-and-forth period of furious hockey in the first overtime, Greening stepped to the fore in the second when Andre Benoit's sharp-angle shot forced Vokoun into a difficult save (his 46th of the night), but he couldn't get to Greening's shot on the rebound. It was Greening's third straight game with a goal, clearly the biggest.

It was the second straight time these fans saw a last-minute game-tying goal from the Senators. In Game 4 of their five-game first-round series against the Montreal Canadiens, the prior time the Senators played at home, Cory Conacher scored with 22.6 seconds to play in regulation to allow Kyle Turris to win it in overtime and give Ottawa a 3-1 series lead. The Penguins took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Tyler Kennedy with 1:07 to go in the second period after the Senators had played nearly flawless hockey for most of it. But the first glaring mistake they made cost them dearly. After a number of failed clearing attempts, one final one by Michalek wound up on the stick of Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke. Karlsson slid toward Cooke to block a potential centering pass, but that left Kennedy wide open in the slot. Cooke deftly dropped it to Kennedy while avoiding Karlsson, and Kennedy's wrist shot tucked right under the crossbar to beat Anderson on Pittsburgh's 23rd shot of the game. The Penguins had done a good job of shutting it down defensively in the third period until they somehow lost Alfredsson on his game-tying goal. The Senators' penalty kill had a strong night, perfect on six opportunities, including a 5-on-3 kill for 58 seconds early in the second period and allowing two shots on goal on a Penguins power play at 1:56 of the second overtime. Senators center Jason Spezza returned to the lineup more than three months after undergoing back surgery. It was the 10th anniversary of Spezza's first career Stanley Cup Playoff game and he tried to get up to speed right away. On his first shift, Spezza got in on the forecheck and finished a hit on Penguins defenseman Douglas Murray before knocking down forward Brenden Morrow deep in the Pittsburgh end as the Scotiabank Place crowd chanted his name. But Spezza's endurance appeared to be an issue as he tired quickly and had to keep his shifts short. Spezza's creativity with the puck and vision did create a few chances, and though he expressed some concern about his timing in the faceoff circle, he finished the night 15-for-25. The Senators looked a bit jittery to start, giving up several good opportunities in the opening 10 minutes, but Anderson managed to keep the game scoreless by turning aside 12 Penguins shots in the first period. Spezza helped trigger a change in momentum when he won an offensive-zone faceoff and went hard to the net to draw a penalty on Tanner Glass at 16:33 of the first, and it very nearly resulted in a goal when Karlsson's point shot about a minute later was tipped by Turris to force Vokoun into an awkward save, but Jakob Silfverberg could not get a handle on the rebound. Turris, who had a strong game going head to head with Sidney Crosby all night, very nearly got Ottawa on the board at 16:11 of the second when he danced around Penguins defenseman Kris Letang on a 1-on-3 to open up space and go in on Vokoun, but his shot went well wide of the far post. There was so much that was better for the Senators than it was in Pittsburgh, including an unlikely shorthanded goal that might have saved their season.