Boston @ Montreal 1-0 OT - Series Tied 2-2
Matt
Fraser contemplated what the days ahead might hold in store for
him as he sat eating lunch in a Mexican restaurant in Providence on
Wednesday. One scenario that did not occur to him was that one night
later he would score 1:19 into overtime in his Stanley Cup Playoff
debut to give the Bruins a 1-0 win against the Canadiens at Bell Centre. Recalled from the Providence Bruins of
the American Hockey League on Thursday, the 23-year-old forward put a
bouncing puck past Montreal goalie Carey
Price to even the Eastern Conference Second Round series at 2-2.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Fraser is only the sixth NHL
player in the past 75 years to score his first career playoff goal in
a 1-0 overtime game. Minnesota Wild forward Mikael Granlund also
accomplished the feat on April 21 against the Colorado Avalanche in a
Western Conference First Round series. The others were San Jose's
Andrei Zyuzin in 1998, Ruslan Fedotenko of the Philadelphia Flyers in
2002, San Jose's Niko Dimitrakos in 2004 and Colorado's Ryan O'Reilly
in 2010. Fraser and Dimitrakos are the only players to accomplish the
feat in a playoff debut. Tuukka
Rask made 33 saves for his second shutout of the playoffs, fifth
of his career. Price, who stopped 34 of 35 shots, said he knew where
the puck was when it came off the glass on the play that led to
Fraser's game-winning goal, but he lost track of it when it struck
someone's shin pad. Game 5 of the best-of-7 series is Saturday at TD
Garden in Boston (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, RDS). Game 4 marked the 10th
time a playoff game between the two rivals has ended 1-0; it was the
first since April 15, 2008, when Montreal won Game 4 in Boston on its
way to a 4-3 series win in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. The
only other 1-0 playoff game between the teams decided in overtime was
on April 16, 1953, at the Forum, when Elmer Lach scored the Stanley
Cup-winning goal at 1:22 of the extra period. Fraser is the first
player to score an overtime goal in his first career playoff game
since Benn Ferriero lifted San Jose to a victory at 7:03 of overtime
in Game 1 of the 2011 Western Conference Semifinals against the
Detroit Red Wings. Fraser had two goals and no assists in 14 games
with Boston during the regular season. He has three goals and two
assists in 27 career regular-season NHL games. Acquired from the
Dallas Stars along with Loui
Eriksson, Reilly
Smith and Joe Morrow on July 4, 2013, in a trade for Tyler
Seguin, Rich Peverley and Ryan Button, Fraser also scored in overtime
in Game 2 of Providence's first-round AHL playoff series against the
Springfield Falcons. Boston came closest to breaking the scoreless
tie in the third. Smith fired a shot off the crossbar during the
Bruins' second power play after Montreal defenseman Alexei
Emelin was called for boarding at 8:21 for his hit on David
Krejci in the right corner. Three minor penalties were called
during regulation, two against Montreal. Boston went 0-for-2 in Game
4 to fall to 0-for-8 on the power play in the series. Canadiens
defenseman P.K.
Subban was called for the first penalty of the game at 7:05, when
he was sent off for holding after he spun Bruins forward Brad
Marchand around behind the Montreal net. Bruins center Patrice
Bergeron's deflection tested Price early on the ensuing power
play, but Boston failed to take advantage of that opportunity as
well. Moments later, Montreal left wing Rene
Bourque drove past Bruins defenseman Johnny
Boychuk and reached across the goal mouth, but his attempt to
stuff the puck into the left side went off the side of the net.
Defenseman Matt
Bartkowski got Boston's first penalty at 11:49 of the second
period when he was called for holding Lars
Eller behind the Bruins net. Bruins center Carl
Soderberg had the best scoring opportunity of the first period
with less than a minute to play when Boston took advantage of a
turnover by Subban. Price made a left-pad save on Fraser's shot from
the left side after the Bruins forward pounced on Subban's pass back
off the boards behind the net. The rebound went to the slot, and
Soderberg fired a shot, but Price got his left arm on the puck,
deflecting it up into the netting. Earlier, Subban plunged to the ice
to cut off Soderberg's pass from the right side on a 2-on-1 with
Fraser. The Canadiens, who scored a pair of breakaway goals in their
4-2 win in Game 3, got another opportunity to go in alone on Rask in
the second. Eller found Gionta behind two Bruins defensemen at the
blue line, but Rask denied the Montreal captain's backhand shot.
Canadiens defenseman Douglas
Murray, playing in his third straight playoff game, drew a huge
cheer from the crowd just past the midway point of the first period
when he dropped Shawn
Thornton to the ice with a check along the boards. Defenseman
Andrej
Meszaros and forward Jordan
Caron were left out of the Bruins lineup in favor of Bartkowski
and Fraser. Therrien used the same lineup he dressed for Game 3.
Anaheim @ Los Angeles 3-2 - Kings Lead Series 2-1
The opening five minutes of Game 3 let everyone
know that the Sucks were ready to take back Southern California: Matt
Beleskey sent Drew
Doughty head-over-skates into the bench. Corey
Perry banged the glass to rattle the front-row fans. The Sucks
showed that they are back in their first Stanley Cup Playoff series
against the Kings with a 3-2 win on Thursday at Staples Center. Perry
recorded his first point of the Western Conference Second Round
series and Teemu
Selanne scored the go-ahead goal for Anaheim, which pulled to 2-1
in the best-of-7 series by snapping the Kings' remarkable six-game
win streak. Game 4 is Saturday at Staples Center (9:30 p.m. ET;
NBCSN, TSN, RDS). The Sucks might not have goalie Frederik
Andersen available for Game 4. Andersen came out of the game
midway through the third period with what the Sucks said was a
lower-body injury, and coach Bruce Boudreau said he's day-to-day,
along with Beleskey, who also left with a lower-body injury. Boudreau
made a bold move and started Andersen, a rookie, instead of Jonas
Hiller, who seemed to take back the starting job after he
relieved Andersen and won the series-clinching Game 6 of the first
round but lost Games 1 and 2 to the Kings and was 0-5-2 all-time at
Staples Center. This game was more about Anaheim asserting itself in
an enemy building to avoid its first 0-3 series deficit since the
2006 Western Conference final against the Edmonton Oilers. The Sucks
got a strong game from captain Ryan
Getzlaf and followed through after a great road start that took
the energy out of the building. Perry punctuated his power-play goal
with the theatrics on the end-boards glass after he took a feed from
Patrick
Maroon, stationed to the left of goalie Jonathan
Quick, and easily slammed it home on the power-play at 4:06 of
the opening period. Jeff
Carter's power-play goal early in the second period tied the
game, but Selanne scored Anaheim's second extra-man goal of the night
with 4:50 remaining in the period to put the Sucks ahead to stay.
Lovejoy's goal became the game-winner when the Kings' Mike
Richards batted the puck out of midair and past Hiller with 30.8
seconds left. But the Sucks didn't allow L.A. to get off another shot
before the final horn. Los Angeles dropped its first game since April
22, when it fell into a 3-0 first-round series deficit to the San
Jose Sharks. Center Anze
Kopitar extended his point streak to 10 games but it was the one
bright spot for the Kings. Each side reiterated how little separates
it from the other, and at least one Kings player acknowledged which
team played like it wanted to avoid that 0-3 deficit. The Sucks went
into second intermission with a 2-1 lead after a turning point on
special teams. The Kings killed off a 4-on-3 Sucks power play and
appeared to grab some momentum, but Anaheim's Nick
Bonino made a saucer pass to Selanne, who finished a 2-on-1 with
his 44th career playoff goal at 15:10, two seconds before Drew
Doughty's hooking penalty was set to expire. Two Kings collided
in the neutral zone and Bonino came out with the puck, triggering the
odd-man rush. Kings coach Darryl Suter cited the "little
turnover when it's 1-1" as the difference, but he also
emphasized that this series is about such details. Sutter also took
note of Anaheim's waves of forwards. Anaheim effectively took the
crowd out of the game by grabbing a quick 1-0 lead on Perry's goal
and using a stifling defense that allowed little sustained pressure
by the Kings, who had four shots in the final 16 minutes of the first
period. The Sucks inserted defenseman Sami
Vatanen and right wing Kyle
Palmieri into the lineup. Vatanen played with Cam
Fowler up top on the power play, which allowed Getzlaf to set up
along the half wall. Vatanen played 20:19, including 2:34 on the
power play. Maroon became the first NHL rookie to record a postseason
point streak of at least six games since Warren Rychel of the Kings
in 1993. Los Angeles played its second straight game without injured
defensemen Willie
Mitchell and Robyn
Regehr.
Sutter: "They're a high-scoring team. If
you allow them to get guys easy, fast opportunities toward our
goaltender, they're going to beat us. That's what they did tonight."
Richards: "We just turned too many pucks
over in our own zone, which allowed them to play a lot in the
offensive zone and made us spend a lot of energy in the D-zone
instead of going and playing in the other end,"
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