With any Hurricane luck whatsoever, there never would have been an overtime. The Bruins were thoroughly outplayed from start to finish. They were outshot by a whopping 38-19 margin in regulation, and that's before we even introduce the six? eight? 10? open nets they missed during the course of the game.
"We had some early chances in overtime," said Boston coach Claude Julien. "But nevertheless, we certainly didn't deserve to win this game. There's such a thing as what you call your 'hockey gods,' and they give a break to the team that deserves it. We didn't deserve the game."
More bad news for the Bruins: The Hurricanes managed to win this game without Cam Ward being called upon to be anything more than a serviceable NHL goalie. "It was a pretty quiet night for myself," he acknowledged.
But when he absolutely had to be brilliant, he was. The Bruins had two pretty good opportunities at the outset of OT. First, Milan Lucic, who had given his team a 1-0 lead in the first period, came sailing in unimpeded on the Carolina goalkeeper, only to be casually turned back. A short time later, the artful Marc Savard was likewise stonewalled on a serious scoring bid. So Ward might be guilty of some unwarranted modesty, after all.
But perhaps the most ominous thing for the Bruins to ponder was the identity of the Carolina winning goal scorer. For Jussi Jokinen is fast becoming Carolina's Mr. Clutch, Mr. Gold Dust, Mr. Keep-It-Close-And-I'll-Win-It-For-You. He was the central offensive figure in Carolina's historic comeback triumph over New Jersey in the previous series (winning Game 4 at 19:59 with a skate job and tying Game 7 on a one-timer past Martin Brodeur with 1:20 remaining).
Has he been selected by the aforementioned hockey gods to be the offensive hero of the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs?
