Bruins’ big guns deliver in Boston. Now, can the Hurricanes answer in Game 5 at home?
Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins is 36 years old, and there has been talk of possible retirement.
Brad Marchand is 33 — just days away from being 34. The Bruins winger still has that bite to his game, that pestiness, but did not end the regular season as he wanted, scoring one goal in the last 13 games.
Aging stars? Yes, they are that. But also former Stanley Cup winners, and the two players who have stepped up against the Carolina Hurricanes in their first-round playoff series just when it appeared it would a short one in which the Canes’ younger, faster stars would be the difference.
But age has little to do with it, Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said Sunday after Marchand and Bergeron led the Bruins to a 5-2 win at TD Garden to even the series 2-2.
“They know how to win,” Brind’Amour said. “I was there. I wanted to win more when I was that age, when I knew I didn’t have as many kicks of the can.”
In Brind’Amour’s case, he was 35 when the Canes won the Stanley Cup in 2006. He was the guy wearing the “C” as team captain, just as Bergeron is for the Bruins.
“Age just goes out the window at this time of the year,” Brind’Amour said.
Marchand has rarely looked better than he did Sunday in a five-point game. He scored twice, the second an empty-netter, but the first a critical power-play goal that proved to be the game-winner, giving the Bruins a 3-2 lead 44 seconds into the third period.
Marchand finished with two goals and three assists and had eight points in the Bruins’ two wins. Bergeron had a goal and two assists Sunday. Add in a goal and assist for winger David Pastrnak and that was a tidy 10 points for the Bergeron line.
“Those guys are really good hockey players and they’ve been doing it for a long time, veteran guys who have won the Stanley Cup,” Canes center Vincent Trocheck said. “They know what it takes. We have to make sure we’re limiting them, but they’re going to get their chances and score their goals. We just have to be a little more disciplined.”
In contrast, the Canes’ top line of center Sebastian Aho and wingers Andrei Svechnikov and Seth Jarvis — Aho the oldest at 24 — did not have a point Sunday and had a combined eight shots on goal, four by Svechnikov.
Looking ahead to Game 5 Tuesday in Raleigh, Brind’Amour and the Canes again will have the last change at home and the chance for more favorable matchups. That was a factor in the Canes winning the first two games, when Brind’Amour could match the Jordan Staal line against Bergeron’s line.
Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy, with the last change once back in Boston, moved Pastrnak back to the Bergeron line with Marchand and the results were immediate. It was in the first period Sunday, when he sent that line out for a faceoff in the Canes zone against Carolina’s fourth line. Bergeron won the faceoff and scored for a 1-1 tie.
“They’re the type of players if you give them a little bit of room they make you pay,” Brind’Amour said. “You’ve got to be right with them, otherwise they can put it in the back of the net. You tip your hat there on that with those guys, and the other stuff we’ve got to be better at.”
The “other stuff” Sunday was a punchless power play and a slew of penalties. The Canes looks discombobulated on the power play and kept marching to the penalty box, allowing the Bruins nine power plays — Boston had more than 12 minutes of power-play time.
Boston was missing defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who entered COVID-19 protocol Sunday morning and will miss Game 5. But they scored twice on the power play as Jake DeBrusk wedged the puck past Raanta on a disputed play — Brind’Amour losing a coach’s challenge for goaltender interference — and then Marchand scoring early in the third late on a 5-on-3.
“Our penalty kill needs to do a little better job,” said defenseman Brett Pesce, one of the Canes’ top killers. “But, yeah, we could be a little more disciplined. We’ve got to stay out of the box.”
Svechnikov believes going back to PNC Arena, where the Canes won twice, will give the Canes a blast of energy. He’d also like to see it be more of a five-on-five game.
“Five on five I think we’re good,” he said.
When the Canes won the Cup in 2006, they began the playoffs with two losses at home to Montreal. How’s that for adversity? But they won two on the road, finished off the Canadiens and went on from there.
“It starts over now,” Brind’Amour said Sunday after the game. “It’s just regroup. You should have a little emotion now and it should hurt and it should bother you and then tomorrow you start fresh and you’re excited there’s another game to play.”
