Canadiens Beat Bruins in Double OT

The 34th Stanley Cup Playoff series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins started off with a bang.

Carey Price had 48 saves and PK Subban won the game just 4:17 into the second overtime.

At 4:10 of the second overtime, Bruins defenseman, Matt Bartkowski, was called for holding and that gave the Canadiens the man advantage.  The Canadiens wasted little time making the Bruins pay for taking the penalty.  Danny Briere got the puck to Andrej Markov off the face off.  Markov fed it to Subban, who was at the other point, and he rifled it past Tuukka Rask for the game winner.

It was the second power play goal of the night for Subban.  In the first period, Bartkowski went off for tripping Dale Weise.  Tomas Plekanec pick up a loose puck along the boards and got it back to Subban.  Subban got the puck over to Markov, who then passed it back to Subban.  Subban took the shot and beat Rask, who had to deal with some traffic in front of him.

The Canadiens built on the 1-0 lead in the second period.  The Bruins turned the puck over in the neutral zone and Lars Eller jumped on the puck.  Eller got it over to Rene Bourque, who snapped the puck past Rask for the 2-0 lead heading into the third period.

The third period featured another two goal lead blown and four goals total.  Three of the four goals were scored by the Bruins.

The first Bruins goal came just 2:44 into the period and was scored by Reilly Smith.  It was Smith's second of the playoffs from Brad Marchand and Dougie Hamilton.  Then at 6:30 of the period, the Bruins struck again to tie the game.  This time it was Torey Krug from Milan Lucic and Patrice Bergeron.  Lucic picked up the loose puck in the neutral zone, skated in the offensive zone, and passed it over to Krug, who beat Price.

Michel Therrien used the Canadiens time out and his team responded with a goal by Francis Bouillon to take the 3-2 lead.  Brian Gionta got the puck to Bouillon and he scored.  Rask may have been screened by his own teammate, Johnny Boychuk on the play.

The Bruins kept coming at the Canadiens even though there were down a goal.  Carl Soderberg got the puck to Loui Eriksson, who managed to play the puck to the corner while falling down.  Marchand picked up the loose puck and got it back to the point.  Johnny Boychuk took the slap shot and beat Price to tie the game at three with just 1:58 left in regulation.

There were no goals in the first overtime period but plenty of chances especially for the Bruins.  They just couldn't bury the opportunities they had because they were either stopped by Price or the Canadiens players cleared the puck out of harm's way before a Bruin could get to it.

If the Bruins want to tie the series at one then they'll have to be better on Saturday.  Rask stopped 29 of the 33 saves he faced but he'll need to be better than that if the Bruins want to win the series.