Boston strong
Bruins score early, often for 2-0 lead in East finals
PITTSBURGH – The Boston Bruins keep talking about fortunate bounces and a dash of luck, insisting the margin between themselves and the Pittsburgh Penguins is thin.
At the moment, it looks like a chasm.
Brad Marchand scored twice during a four-goal first period and the Bruins routed the Pittsburgh 6-1 in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals on Monday night to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
“It doesn’t matter what the series is at right now,” Marchand said. “If they get the next one, they’re right back in it. The next one is the one that’s most important.”
It’s a phrase the top-seeded Penguins repeated after losing Game 1 on Saturday night to fall behind in a series for the first time in the playoffs. The inspired play they needed never materialized.
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were held scoreless for the second straight contest to send the NHL’s highest-scoring team slouching to Boston for Game 3 on Wednesday with its season on the line.
“Tonight was terrible, there’s no other way to describe it,” Crosby said. “We really didn’t do a lot of things to give ourselves a chance to win.”
David Krejci, Nathan Horton, Patrice Bergeron and Johnny Boychuk also scored for Boston while Tuukka Rask stopped 26 shots. Pittsburgh’s top-ranked power play went 0 for 2 and the Penguins were never in it after the Bruins scored three times in 17 minutes to chase Tomas Vokoun.
Brandon Sutter netted Pittsburgh’s lone goal. Vokoun gave up three goals on 12 shots before being replaced by Marc-Andre Fleury.
Pouncing on every mistake – of which there were plenty to choose – Boston buried the Penguins early. Not bad for a team that needed an improbable third-period rally in Game 7 of the first round against Toronto to advance.
“Winning that Toronto series created some momentum from that,” Bruins forward Milan Lucic said. “We’ve been able to keep riding that momentum. We need to keep pushing harder.”
The last 16 teams to go up 2-0 in the conference finals have advanced to the Cup finals. The Penguins managed to escape a 2-0 hole against the Bruins in 1991 on their way to the franchise’s first championship.