RALEIGH, N.C. - The Bruins did not deserve to win Game 3.
Seemingly quaking in their skates before a sellout crowd of 18,680 at the RBC Center last night, the Bruins were thoroughly outclassed for three periods. After 60 minutes, Carolina held a 38-19 shot advantage. With his teammates making plays and pressuring Tim Thomas throughout the night, Hurricanes goalie Cam Ward could have checked out of the rink, picked up some takeout, and returned to the crease without missing a puck on net.
Amid the Carolina firestorm, in the ultimate display of injustice, the taking-a-licking Bruins wiped out a 2-1 deficit with a tying goal at 9:03 of the third period, then hung on with every tooth and nail to send the game into overtime.
But hockey proved out to be fair last night.
At 2:48 of overtime, fourth-line center Jussi Jokinen tapped in a close-range rebound of a Sergei Samsonov backhander to power the Hurricanes to a 3-2 win. Carolina takes a 2-1 lead into Game 4 tomorrow night.
After the loss, Dennis Wideman had perhaps the most damning statement about his team.
"We got outworked," said the defenseman.
On the winning goal, Zdeno Chara tried to clear the puck up the wall. Samsonov darted in front, picked off the clear, and attacked Chara. The captain lunged forward with his stick. Samsonov slashed around it, went to his backhand, and put the puck on goal. Linemate Tuomo Ruutu had gained inside position on Aaron Ward, preventing the defenseman from clearing Samsonov's rebound. The puck went to the stick of Jokinen, who had an easy tap-in to beat Thomas.
"They took it to us," said Thomas. "Finally, they ended up breaking us down. They pressured us, pressured us, pressured us. Eventually, they ended up capitalizing."
In perhaps the most hair-pulling aspect about last night's loss (and you could probably say the same for the first 40 minutes of the 3-0 Game 2 setback), the Bruins competed like it was preseason. They lost races for pucks. They gave away pucks like Christmas presents. They were scared to enter the danger areas and risk a blast to the back or a slash to the legs.
This all happened while the Hurricanes played one of their best games of 2008-09.
"Very uncharacteristic of our hockey club," Bruins coach Claude Julien said of his shell-shocked group. "You've got to give credit to the other team. They played extremely well and extremely hard. But we certainly didn't give them a good opposition tonight. We certainly didn't give too much resistance."
The Bruins took a 1-0 lead into the second period, courtesy of a Milan Lucic goal. The left wing scored by doing something that was seen far too seldom all night - going to the net.
