Playoff Results - Sat, May 03, 2014

Montreal @ Boston 3-5 - Round 2 Game 2

For the second time in as many games in the Eastern Conference Second Round, the Bruins rallied from a two-goal deficit against the Canadiens. This time, the Bruins won. Forward Reilly Smith capped a run of three Boston goals in 5:32 of the third period, and the Bruins defeated the Canadiens 5-3 Saturday at TD Garden to even the best-of-7 series 1-1. The Bruins trailed 3-1 after Montreal forward Thomas Vanek scored at 6:30 of the third period. Boston rallied from 2-0 down in Game 1 and trailed 3-2 before losing 4-3 in double overtime Thursday. Game 3 is at Bell Centre in Montreal on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, RDS). Smith beat Montreal goaltender Carey Price with a wrist shot from near the bottom of the right circle with 3:32 left to put Boston ahead 4-3. The Bruins have rallied from 2-0 down to win twice in these Stanley Cup Playoffs (they also did it in Game 4 of the first round against the Detroit Red Wings). It was the 11th comeback victory after a multigoal deficit in this year's playoffs. Bruins defenseman Dougie Hamilton started the comeback by changing his angle on the blue line then beating a moving Price with a wrist shot through traffic that cut the lead to 3-2 at 10:56 of the third. Bergeron tied the game with a wrist shot from up high near the right half wall. The puck deflected off Montreal defenseman Francis Bouillon before it went past Price with 5:43 to go. Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask stopped 25 of 28 shots, and he defeated Montreal for the first time in 10 games in Boston (1-6-3). Forward Milan Lucic scored an empty-net goal with 1:06 left. Price, who stopped 48 shots in Game 1, finished with 30 saves. Vanek scored two goals after failing to land a shot on net in Game 1. The Canadiens trailed for a total of 3:34 through their first five postseason games, including a first-round sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Bruins took their first lead of this series at 13:02 of the first period. Defenseman Andrej Meszaros missed wide on a shot from the blue line and center Carl Soderberg kept the puck in at the right wall. Soderberg found Daniel Paille at the high slot for a snap shot that was nicked by Bouillon's stick and eluded Price. The Bruins failed to take advantage of a 1:00 5-on-3 advantage earlier in the first. The Canadiens were 0-for-2 on the power play in the period. Montreal wasted little time to pull even in the second. Defenseman Mike Weaver smacked a one-timer from the top of the right circle past Rask at 1:09 off a feed from Tomas Plekanec. The Canadiens had been buzzing around the Bruins net, but Rask did some acrobatics to keep the puck out before the goal. Vanek broke the tie at 18:09 of the period during a 4-on-3 power play. After Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara turned over the puck to Montreal forward Max Pacioretty, defenseman P.K. Subban zipped a pass to the front, where Vanek just got his stick down in time for a tip that gave the Canadiens a 2-1 lead. Vanek extended the Canadiens' lead at 6:30 of the third period on another Montreal power play. Subban took a shot from the blue line and Vanek tipped it in after it emerged from a lot of traffic. It might've also been tipped out high before giving Montreal a 3-1 lead. With the series tied, the Bruins will focus on a better start on the road.

Iginla: "It's a big win, there's no question. We did a lot of good things again. We fought through a lot of stuff tonight. Some things didn't go our way and it feels good that guys stayed with it, stayed positive. We were able to get a late comeback and that's big, something to build on. Game 2 is more important than Game 1, after the first one. So, it feels good. Guys played hard and found a way. But now, that's just one."
Bergeron: "Well obviously we've got to find a way to not get into that position, if we can. But I think we're a resilient group and we've been there before and we have the confidence that we can actually come back in games. Tonight was a perfect example of that. That being said, they outplayed us for more than half the game, so we've got to be better. For sure ... it wasn't close to being good enough, especially at this time of year. We needed to respond and I thought all the guys did that in that third period. But like I've said, we've got to start earlier. We've got to have a 60-minute effort. We haven't done that so far."
Price: "Well they poured it on at the end of the game. They got pretty lucky, I thought. They were playing desperate at the end of the game and they found a way to put it in the net. We've just got to regroup, realize the situation we're in, we're in a good spot, and move forward."
Subban: "We had a two-goal lead. We have to manage the puck better and do smarter things out there, making sure we are being smart with the puck and putting ourselves in a good position. Nine minutes left to go in the game, we have to shut it down. Good teams know how to shut things down when they have the lead. We are a good team, we have done it before. But at the same token we came here wanting to get one win, obviously we would have liked to have two, but we got one. We have home-ice advantage, we're going back to Montreal, and we'll be ready to play."

Los Angeles @ Anaheim 3-2 OT - Round 2 Game 1

A game 20 years in the making began with chants of "Go Kings Go!" that had to be drowned out by "Go Ducks Go!" and "Let's Go Ducks!" Oohs and aahs for every hard hit and shot off the post filled a standing room-only Honda Center for the first Stanley Cup Playoff game between the Sucks and Kings. It was worth the wait. Marian Gaborik sent the Kings fans in the building happy when he scored at 12:17 of overtime to give Los Angeles a 3-2 win Saturday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference Second Round series. Game 2 is Monday night at Honda Center (10 p.m. ET; NBCSN, TSN, RDS). Gaborik, whose goal with 7.0 seconds remaining in regulation forced OT, won it when he came in from the left side and tipped Anze Kopitar's pass from the high slot into the net after Doughty executed a pass from the boards out to Kopitar. Gaborik's fifth goal of the playoffs gave the Kings their fifth straight win in the postseason and sent the orange-clad portion of the crowd of 17,393 out the door in silence. It was a cruel loss for the Ducks, who were seven seconds away from a win and outplayed the Kings for large stretches of the game, including overtime, but found out again how difficult it will be to score two or more goals against Los Angeles. The Kings tied the game at 2-2 when Gaborik batted the rebound of Mike Richards' shot out of the air and between goalie Jonas Hiller's pads. The building was still in disbelief when the teams headed to their dressing rooms. Anaheim had called timeout with 40 seconds remaining to prepare but the Kings pulled goalie Jonathan Quick for a sixth attacker. It was quasi-redemption for Richards, who missed on a 2-on-1 with Justin Williams late in regulation. Anaheim won the draw but Gaborik knocked the puck down. Nick Bonino got a block but the Kings worked the puck out and had Richards' rebound find Gaborik's stick with defenseman Bryan Allen defending. The Kings' win came with a price. They went down to five defensemen after Robyn Regehr left the game in the first period. Regehr was hit against the end boards by Selanne and did not return. Los Angeles was already without Willie Mitchell, who sat out with a lower-body injury and was replaced by Matt Greene. Kings coach Darryl Sutter did not have an update on Regehr. Jeff Schultz is available unless the team recalls another defenseman from its AHL affiliate, the Manchester Monarchs. Gaborik's heroics ruined the juicy storyline of Teemu Selanne, 43, whose third-period goal would have stood as the game-winner. Selanne, whose career predates the existence of his Ducks, finished a 2-on-2 rush when he took a pass from Patrick Maroon and nudged the puck five-hole on Quick at 8:08 to make it 2-1. Selanne became the third-oldest player in NHL history to score a playoff goal. Only Gordie Howe (52 in 1980) and Chris Chelios (45 in 2007) were older. The much-anticipated game featured the tug-of-war dynamic expected between the offensively deep Ducks and the deliberate defensive style of the Kings. After much speculation about Anaheim's starting goalie, Hiller got the nod and stopped 33 shots. Quick completed a stretch of three goals allowed in 11 periods before Selanne notched his 43rd career postseason goal. Anaheim was credited with 54 hits and Los Angeles 41. Kopitar had three assists in his matchup with Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf, who had two. Kopitar leads the NHL with 13 points (four goals) in eight playoff games. The two goals allowed in regulation by Los Angeles equaled the number it allowed in its previous three games. The Kings prevailed despite going more than 17 minutes without a shot, from Alec Martinez's first-period goal to the second period. Not bad for a series opener. The Kings were fewer than 72 hours removed from one of the biggest Game 7 wins in franchise history, a historic comeback from a 3-0 series deficit against the San Jose Sharks. They appeared drained midway through the game when they were under duress, but managed a 1-1 tie going into the third period after the Ducks' Nick Bonino and Corey Perry each hit a post. Getzlaf came back from a blocked shot off his knee and triggered an eruption among the Anaheim fans in the building when he set up the Ducks' first goal. He drove the right side around Kings defenseman Jake Muzzin, faked a wraparound and fed Matt Beleskey for a tap-in into an open net at 11:41, tying the game at 1-1. Martinez opened the scoring at 9:04 with his first playoff goal since Game 3 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final and the Kings' seventh power-play goal in 22 tries in the past six games.


Doughty: "The atmosphere in the crowd was pretty good tonight. One of the loudest I've heard in this arena. I think a lot of that had to do with the Kings fans here. This is huge for California. But I think that all the players in here, as much as we all know about it, we're just focused on winning games, and that's all that matters to us. I think we showed in the last series that our team doesn't give up. We're a very resilient team. We never once believed that we were going to lose that game. And even with a minute left and the timeouts were called, we really believed that we were going to get that goal. Maybe it was a lucky goal or whatnot, but it doesn't matter how it went in. It went in."
Cogliano: "It's pretty painful right when it happens but … you've got to move on. We're in for the long run here. It's going to be a long series, and tonight showed that. It was an exciting hockey game. I don't think you'll find a better game than that. It was pretty fun to play in, I just wish we would have put the last one in."
Boudreau: "I don't think there was a real breakdown. They made a good play. You get scored on with seven seconds to go, it's a tough one to swallow. I think this is what all the games are going to be like. We had opportunities to win the game. We didn't convert. They converted when they had to."
Sutter: "It was awesome. It's what you expect. The building was great. It was a physical game, and I think the crowd really responded to that. Going to be a good series, I hope."