When you play Stanley Cup playoff games for the Bruins, you learn something very quickly: Don\u2019t hit the panic button.<\/p>\n
The Bruins had plenty of reasons heading into Game 1 against the Hurricanes to doubt themselves. After all, they earned 100 points in 70 regular season games and couldn\u2019t earn a single point in three round robin contests.<\/p>\n
Heck, they couldn\u2019t even claim the lead in 180 minutes of play against the Flyers, Lightning and Capitals.<\/p>\n
They were down 1-0 in the first Wednesday when David Pastrnak took a beauty of a pass from Brad Marchand and tied the game, 1-1. Then lo and behold, Charlie Coyle took advantage of Petr Mrazek\u2019s inability to freeze the puck under his glove and gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead 4:38 into the second period. That thrill of finally having the lead lasted all of 21 seconds as not only could the Bruins not take advantage of the power play they were given for Carolina\u2019s failed challenge on the Coyle goal, they allowed a short-handed tally from Brock McGinn on a Pastrnak giveaway.<\/p>\n
A lot of teams would\u2019ve held their heads low. Not the Bruins according to David Krejci.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it really shook our bench,\u201d Krejci told me. \u201cWe\u2019ve been in this situation before. We have a confident group just like Bergy said. We believe in each other. We believe we\u2019re a good team. If we play the way we\u2019re supposed to play, we\u2019ll get a win. Just stuck with it, we played the same way, got a big goal by a big line and it feels good to get the first win out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lot of teams would\u2019ve also been shaking their heads hard enough for a concussion after Jake DeBrusk hit three pieces of pipe on two different chances over the first two periods. DeBrusk was understandably frustrated with the inability to put one of them away that would\u2019ve kept the Bruins from playing an addition 21 minutes to earn a Game 1 win. How frustrated? He snapped his stick in half over the Bruins boards after one second period chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, this is playoff hockey. Guys are going to get frustrated,\u201d Bruce Cassidy said. \u201cAs long as they don\u2019t let it affect them on the ice in terms of their job responsibility, job description and discipline. I think Jake was a little bit (frustrated), he had a few good looks, didn\u2019t go his way. I thought he worked hard to get those. He keeps doing those type of things, it\u2019ll go in for him. Power play got frustrated for obvious reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was ironic that Bergeron\u2019s game-winner came less than a minute after a rare overtime power play chance. The Bruins power play was scoreless in four chances with three shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cGive them a lot of credit for bottling us up,\u201d Cassidy said. \u201cWe got a little stubborn at times, so there was some frustration there. At the end of the day, it didn\u2019t affect our five-on-five play. I thought we stuck with it, defended really, really well. We played hard. We played for one another, supported pucks and did a lot of good things on offense five-on-five. I thought [Petr] Mrazek played really well, made some key stops on some good looks for us. It was certainly our best five-on-five offensive play we\u2019ve seen since we restarted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nBergeron with the game-winner from Pasta: #NHLBruins<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/ocsBFr1m67<\/a><\/p>\n
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) August 12, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n