“We didn’t clean up in front of our net,’’ said Dennis Seidenberg. “They had people and pucks in front there. Timmy couldn’t see. We just have to do a better job clearing guys and pucks out of there.’’
The Bruins seemingly had the game in hand. At 1:21 of the third period, Milan Lucic broke a 1-1 tie. After waiting for Bryan Allen to hit the deck, Lucic lifted a snap shot over the defenseman that went high over Cam Ward’s blocker for a 2-1 lead. David Krejci assisted on Lucic’s goal to stretch his scoring streak to 11 games (5-11-16).
The Bruins like to believe they own the third period. That wasn’t the case last night.
The Hurricanes turned the tables by playing a Bruin-like third. They won races to the puck. They crashed the net and ran over the Bruins in the danger areas. Because of their net-front persistence, the Hurricanes turned two point floaters into goals.
“We’ve talked a lot about finding ways to win when things are going well,’’ said coach Claude Julien. “Tonight, we found a way to lose. We had control of the game. Not that it was our best game, but I still felt we had control. We had the lead. We got knocked off the puck way too much tonight. When they got it back, they made sure they knew what to do with it. I give them a lot of credit. I thought they played really hard. I thought they played with a lot of energy. They certainly had more than we did tonight.’’
Thomas (17 saves) didn’t get much help from his teammates. After Patrice Bergeron broke through for the game’s first goal in the second period, the Hurricanes played some heavy hockey to tie the score. Gregory Campbell is usually strong on the puck. But on a breakout, he was stripped by Brandon Sutter, who curled the other way. Sutter’s shot hit Johnny Boychuk, deflected off Patrick Dwyer, and rolled past Thomas at 10:30.
