B’s Advance To Conference Finals

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Scott Cordischi, GoLocalWorcester Sports Editor

How much better than the Rangers are the Boston Bruins?

As it turns out, quite a bit.

Saturday, the B’s closed out New York with a 3-1 win in game 5 of their Eastern Conference Semifinal Series. Boston now advances to the Conference Finals where the best team in hockey – the Pittsburgh Penguins – await.

Why is Boston superior to the Rangers. A simple eyeball test will give you the answer.

Boston won the series 4-1 with New York’s only win being a gift-wrapped 4-3 overtime victory in game 4 at Madison Square Garden.

The B’s proved to be a much deeper and more talented team on both ends of the ice. They also appeared to be better coached. But the big surprise was between the pipes where the Rangers were thought to have the edge with Henrik Lundqvist over Tuuka Rask. Instead it was Rask who enjoyed the edge.

Game 5 started out intense with both teams managing good flurries offensively in the opening 20 minutes. Dan Giradrdi’s (2nd) power play goal was the only score in the first period putting the Rangers up 1-0.

However, in the second period, Boston came to life on the power play as rookie sensation Torey Krug’s slapper beat Lundqvist stick-side to tie the game 1-1. Krug’s goal was his 4th in 5 career playoff games (all in this series). He became the first rookie defenseman to score 4 goals in his first 5 playoff games in the history of the National Hockey League.

Later in the second, Greggory Campbell scored his first of two goals on the afternoon when his wrister found the back of the net putting Boston up 2-1 at 13:41.

Boston outshot New York 15-9 in a second period where they clearly controlled the play.

A desperate Rangers team did what it could in the third outshooting Boston 12-8, but Rask was equal to the task.

Campbell added an empty-netter with :51 seconds to play for the final 3-1 margin.

NOTES:

-For the game, Boston outshot the Rangers 32-29.

-Once again, Boston’s 4th line of Campbell, Shawn Thornton and Danielle Paille was a huge factor in the game. Campbell was the #1 star of the game with his 2 goals. Thornton and Paille each had 1 assist.

-Saturday’s win was only Tuukka Rask’s third victory in 11 attempts at closing out an opponent. His gigantic save against Ryan Callahan on the breakaway with 11:22 left was arguably a series-clinching save.

Jarome Iginla

-As of the time this article was published, a start date and time for the Eastern Conference Finals series with the Penguins had not been announced. Both teams will receive at least a couple of days off meaning the earliest it could start would be on Tuesday. We do know that games 1 & 2 will be played in Pittsburgh with games 3 & 4 back in Boston. If necessary, game 5 would be in Pittsburgh, game 6 in Boston and a decisive game 7 back in the Steel City.

-Two delicious subplots to this match-up are the fact that Jaromir Jagr is now wearing a Bruins uniform and the fact that Jarome Iginla turned down a trade to Boston at the trading deadline so that he could play in Pittsburgh instead. Expect Bruins fans to ride Iginla hard every time he touches the puck at the TD Garden. Had Iginla not spurned Boston, the B’s would not have made the move for Jagr.