Twenty Bruins clubs have faced such a deficit, and all 20 have failed to overcome it. The 21st version may come up short too, but last night, before 17,565 fans at the Garden, Chara and the Bruins proved one thing.
They're not fading away.
"Our backs were against the wall," said coach Claude Julien. "Our backs are still against the wall. At one point, you've got to decide what you want to do. Tonight, Game 5 was to create Game 6. We're going into Game 6 to hopefully create Game 7. If you don't leave it all out on the ice and you aren't willing to do the things that you need to do to win, then you're going home. So our guys made that decision tonight to go out there and play the way they needed to play to succeed. We got the results."
The end product: a 4-0 teeth-kicking that was more one-sided than the score indicated. The Bruins, manhandled, 4-1, in Game 4 on enemy ice, were perhaps even more dominant than the Hurricanes were on Friday.
The Bruins skated well. They chipped pucks out of their zone and didn't allow a puck to come Tim Thomas's way until 11:04 of the first period. They gained the Carolina blue line with purpose and ease, then cycled relentlessly against the overmatched Hurricanes to pour puck after puck on Cam Ward (36 saves), who was under siege for most of the night. Their puck-possession game clicked.
"We had the puck," said Thomas (19 saves). "We had the puck in their zone. We were composed. I don't know that they keep time of possession stats, but if they do, you'll definitely see a major difference between tonight's game and the previous three games."
And when things got rough, the Bruins beat up the Hurricanes, with Mark Stuart and Shawn Thornton dispatching forward Tim Conboy in separate bouts.
In short, it was Bruins hockey.
