BOSTON (AP) — With a five-goal, third-period lead and the Bruins still not done scoring, the crowd in the new Boston Garden began a throaty chant of “We want the Cup!”
The next time they see their team, the NHL’s championship trophy might be on the line for real.
Matt Grzelcyk scored twice — his first career multigoal game — and Tuukka Rask made 21 saves to lead the Bruins to a 6-2 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday and give Boston a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals.
Connor Clifton had his first career NHL goal — the 19th Bruins player to score this postseason, tying a franchise record. Jake DeBrusk, David Backes and Danton Heinen also connected, and Torey Krug and Charlie Coyle had three assists apiece.
The series moves to Carolina for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Thursday nights. The Hurricanes need to win at least one to force a fifth game back in Boston on Saturday night.
The Bruins won 5-2 in Game 1, but the Hurricanes led early in the third period and it was still 3-2 with 4 minutes to play.
This one wasn’t ever close.
Petr Mrazek stopped just 19 shots, and Boston led 6-0 before Williams and Teuvo Teravainen scored in the last nine minutes to deprive Rask of a seventh career postseason shutout.
Nearly a half century after Bobby Orr soared through the air on Mother’s Day to finish off the 1970 Stanley Cup, the Hall of Famer was in the building as a pregame hype man known as the banner captain. The crowd gave him a standing ovation, and the team responded as well.
Grzelcyk and DeBrusk scored late in the first, and Clifton made it 3-0 early in the second. With two minutes left in the middle period and Boston back on the power play, Heinen took a long pass out of the Boston zone from Marcus Johansson and drew two defenders with him before sliding it into the slot.
Grzelcyk slipped the puck over to his backhand and beat Mrazek to make it 4-0.
Backes scored 1:10 into the third period, leaving Mrazek looking over to the bench to see if he would be replaced. Brind’Amour said Mrazek, who returned from an injury for Game 1 after Curtis McElhinney started the last two games of the East semifinals, had earned the right to stay in if that’s what he wanted to do.
Heinen finished on a feed from Patrice Bergeron to give Boston a six-goal lead with 15 minutes left before Williams got Carolina on the scoreboard.
Sharks 6, Blues 3
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Timo Meier scored twice and set up one of Logan Couture’s two goals with a hard hit, as the San Jose Sharks downed the St. Louis Blues in Game 1 of the Western Conference final Saturday night.
Couture added an empty-net goal to give him an NHL-leading 11 in the postseason. Joe Pavelski and Kevin Labanc also scored for San Jose and Martin Jones made 28 saves.
Game 2 is tonight at the Shark Tank.
Joel Edmundson, Ryan O’Reilly and Tyler Bozak scored for the Blues but the team gave little help to rookie goalie Jordan Binnington to get off to a rough start in the conference final. Binnington made 19 saves but was left exposed by his defense on numerous occasions.
This series is a matchup between two franchises seeking their first championships after years of playoff disappointments. They endured tough roads to get here with the Sharks needing to win a pair of seven-game series and the Blues needing a double-overtime win in Game 7 against Dallas to make it to their fourth conference final in the past 49 years.
The teams traded goals midway through the second period with Labanc converting after a turnover by Edmundson and O’Reilly answering 1:17 later with a nifty move to get around Jones and tuck a rebound into the open net.
Meier then took over with his two goals in the second half of the period that gave the Sharks breathing room. His first came after Couture poke-checked Colton Parayko coming out of the zone. Meier got the puck, deked past Jay Bouwmeester and then used his quick hands to get a backhand past Binnington.
Meier then got his first two-goal game in the postseason late in the period when his centering pass from behind the goal line deflected off Vince Dunn’s skate and into the net to make it 5-2.
Bozak scored with 6:59 left in the third for the Blues but they couldn’t get any closer despite pulling Binnington with more than four minutes remaining. Couture then sealed it with an empty-netter.
Both teams expected a physical series between two teams with big players who like to get on the forecheck. That’s just the way it started with the Blues delivering several hard hits in the opening period in sharp contrast to the type of series San Jose played last round against the speedy Colorado.
Photo credit – Charles Krupa / Associated Press / Boston, MA