Hurricanes wake up from their 15-month Bruins nightmare, and the script is flipped
Just when it was starting to look more like Game 6 of a series that never really ended instead of Game 2 of the rematch, the Carolina Hurricanes finally woke up from their Boston nightmare.
They shrugged off another night of questionable officiating. They played through any liberties the Bruins may have taken. It took 15 months and one more game, but they finally turned the page on last year’s sweep.
This was a massive win, not only to even a series that through four periods was looking decidedly grim, but to flip a script that seemed to be going against them. And it was the ex-Bruin, of all people, Dougie Hamilton, who did the final damage with an unstoppable third-period fastball in a 3-2 win, his first goal since January on a rebuilt left leg.
“It’s been a long time for me since I played hockey,” Hamilton said. “For seven months you’re thinking about scoring a goal like that. That’s what fuels you when you’re in those tough moments in rehab. It feels great.”
The power play finally awakened. The goalie rotation — James Reimer again taking the second half of a back-to-back — proved fruitful. The Hurricanes’ top line, broken up to deal with matchup issues, still peppered the scoresheet. This was a game full of turning points, and at a time when the Hurricanes only needed one or two they found several, starting with Andrei Svechnikov single-handedly answering the Bruins for snarl and snark alike.
“There’s a lot at stake and a lot of adversity in the game,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “You have to fight through it, everything that seemed to go against us.”
Still, Brind’Amour’s $25,000 deliberate technical foul didn’t buy the Hurricanes any calls, whether because the Hurricanes are the underdog or just old-fashioned incompetence. Even though he watched his words Thursday night, Brind’Amour may yet need to cough up the other $25,000 he was threatened with by the NHL.
Charlie McAvoy ripped off Jordan Staal’s helmet close enough to one official to risk hitting him with the loose bucket. McAvoy then elbowed Svechnikov in the head. He got away with both. The Bruins seem to know instinctively where the line is. The Hurricanes haven’t found it yet.
Then again, who knows where to look? The Bruins tied the score 2-2 at the end of the second on a power play after Torrey Krug backed into a stationary Teuvo Teravainen and Teravainen was called for interference. That’s like getting called for holding the stick after it has been lodged into your upper palate. Turns out, the officials can wave off a goal: the potential go-ahead goal was ruled out in the third after Teravainen was checked into the crease, leading to another unsuccessful Brind’Amour challenge.
And then again, regardless of how they feel about the penalties or how much Brind’Amour wants to borrow from his 401(k), the Hurricanes were still going to need to kill one or two of those penalties at some point. The Bruins scored on their first two power plays, but the Hurricanes killed the third, after the Teravainen non-goal, a timely kill if there ever was one.
If there was a game in this series where the Hurricanes should have had a clear advantage, this was it. The younger team in a back-to-back, bringing back two key players who didn’t play in Game 1, and with the Bruins missing 48-goal-scorer David Pastrnak to boot. It took the Hurricanes a period or two to find their footing, but once they did they were able to capitalize on circumstances that played into their hands, with Martin Necas leading the way with a pair of assists.
“Every time something seemed to go against us we bounced back,” Brind’Amour said. “It evens the series. Nothing to get overly excited about. It at least gets us back to square one.”
But it is a series now. The old cliche about a playoff series not starting until the road team wins a game still applies even when both teams are away from home. The Svechnikov-Sebastian Aho-Teravainen line, broken up Thursday, is likely to be reunited Saturday when the Hurricanes have last change. For the first time in more than a year, things have turned the Hurricanes’ way.
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 11:29 PM with the headline "Hurricanes wake up from their 15-month Bruins nightmare, and the script is flipped."
