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| After coughing up a commanding 3-0 lead in Game 4 Saturday afternoon, Zdeno Chara and the Bruins blew a golden opportunity to take control of the series and now find themselves dead even with the surging Lightning. |
It seemed too good to be true.
And it was.
Infused by a pair of Teddy Purcell goals in the second period, the Lightning went on to score five unanswered goals, including the eventual game-winner by certified Bruins killer Simon Gagne with just under seven minutes gone in the final period.
Not only did the Bruins blow a golden opportunity to grab a stranglehold of the series, but Boston now loses the momentum and finds itself tied with Tampa 2-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The series now shifts to Boston for a monumental Game 5 Monday night.
"When you're up, you almost sit back a bit," admitted Bruins forward Brad Marchand. "You think that the game is over and that's what we did. We thought that we had them. We took it for granted. We didn't use it to our advantage and we didn't keep pushing forward and that's what we should have done."
The first period was a spectacular display of Bruins hockey: great forechecking, smothering defense, physical play, Berlin Wall-type goaltending from Tim Thomas and timely scoring as well.
Playing in his second game since returning from a mild concussion, Patrice Bergeron gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead midway through the opening period when he pounced on a defensive miscue from the Lightning behind their net and quickly hammered home the puck past Dwayne Roloson.
Michael Ryder pushed the lead to 2-0 some five minutes later when he took a feed from linemate Chris Kelly and then rushed to the net. Ryder attempted to feed the puck to a trailing teammate on the backhand, but his shot had eyes and bounced off Roloson's pads into the vacant net.
Then, with just over two minutes remaining in the period, Bergeron scored his second unassisted goal of the period, but this time it came shorthanded. The Bruins best two-way forward stole the puck in the neutral zone then raced up ice and snapped off a quick wrister from just inside the circle that eluded Roloson between the legs.
Suddenly, the sell-out crowd of 21,216 at the St. Pete Times Forum were stunned, silenced by the Bruins dominating opening period. Lightning coach Guy Boucher had no choice but to yank Roloson in favor of backup goaltender Mike Smith, if only to break the Bruins sizzling momentum.
From there on out, it was like watching a car crash in slow-motion.
Content with their lead, the Bruins stopped playing their game. Boston allowed a pair of goals to Purcell early in the second period and then the game-tying goal to Sean Bergenheim near the midway mark. It was Bergenheim's NHL leading 9th playoff goal.
"We stopped battling," admitted Bergeron, who has 14 points (4 goals, 10 assists) in 13 playoff games thus far. "The second, we sat back and they've got too much speed. We weren't executing at all. We were on our heels. It's frustrating. We've got to be a lot better."
Unable to stop the bleeding or curb Tampa's surging momentum, the Bruins caved in for good with just under seven minutes gone in the third period.
Once again, it was Gagne scoring the game-winner. If you remember correctly, it was Gagne who also scored the game-winning goal for Philadelphia in Game 7 to lift the Flyers out of a 0-3 series hole and send the Bruins home last season.
"I think what happened last year, it's behind (us)," admitted Gagne. "Things are different now. I'm playing with a different team. Boston is a different team. Right now it's just going out there and trying to be the difference in the game."
Martin St. Louis, a former teammate of Tim Thomas at UVM, sealed the win with an empty-net goal in the final minute.
"We got outworked," admitted Thomas, who finished with 32 saves after pitching a shutout in Game 3. "They took over. They took the play to us. They started getting scoring chances and we stopped getting scoring chances."
Stepping in for Roloson, Smith stopped all 21 shots he faced.
"There's not time to think," said Smith. "It's just one of those things where we got behind the 8-ball there in the first. That's why I'm on the bench, to come in and kind of settle the team down and give thema little bit of momentum. It ended up working out."
With the devastating loss, Bruins fans can't help but have recurring visions of last season's epic collapse against Philadelphia in the second round. Sure, Saturday night's contest wasn't a do-or-die Game 7 in which the Bruins held a 3-0 series lead, but Boston was in control and coughed up a game they should have easily won.
Now, the Bruins find themselves answering questions about last season when fans were all but certain those demons were exorcised when Boston swept Philadelphia less than two weeks ago.
"A lot of our players did not play their best game," lamented head coach Claude Julien, possibly taking a subtle poke at David Krejci, who was a minus-3 and lost 9 of 12 faceoffs. "We lost our focus."
Regardless of how painful it was to watch the beloved Black and Gold crash and burn in Game 4, it doesn't change the fact that the series in tied and still far from over. It just means the Bruins let one get away.
And hopefully, unlike last season, that won't come back to haunt them.
"We just have to let this one go," concluded Marchand. "We're going home in our building for Game 5 and we're excited about it."
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