Patrice Bergeron and Marcus Johansson scored 28 seconds apart on a power play on Thursday as the Boston Bruins defeated the visiting Carolina Hurricanes in the opening game of their Eastern Conference Final.
Goaltender Tuukka Rask stopped 29 shots for the Bruins, who stretched their winning streak to four straight games and snapped Carolina’s at six.
The Bruins are assured of home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs, so Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is in Boston, Massachusetts, tomorrow.
Photo: AFP
Boston lost three of their first five games to open their first-round series against Toronto, but key performers such as Rask and Czech forward David Pastrnak appeared to have hit their stride.
“We earned home ice by playing well all year,” said forward Chris Wagner, who had a goal.
Sebastian Aho and Greg McKegg scored for Carolina, and Petr Mrazek stopped 23 shots in his return from a two-game absence following an injury.
The Hurricanes took a 2-1 lead into the third period before they took a string of penalties.
“They compete and they are physical all over [the] ice, but maybe to a fault, so we got to take advantage of the power plays,” Wagner said.
Jordan Staal boarded Wagner to lead to Johansson’s score, and Dougie Hamilton roughed Joakim Nordstrom ahead of Bergeron’s go-ahead tally.
The Hurricanes pulled Mrazek with 2 minutes, 38 seconds remaining, but Charlie Boyle and Wagner put the game away with empty-netters 11 seconds apart.
Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour refused to blame poor officiating for their loss.
“There were penalties both ways that were called and not called,” he said. “We took penalties and we need to kill them.”
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