Stanley Cup Final- Game 2

Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final was just as exciting as Game 1. The difference was there was no biting of fingers, more scoring, and an ending that happened so quickly that if you went to grab a cold beverage as the puck dropped you missed the game winning goal in overtime.

Vancouver takes a 2-0 series lead heading from one ocean to the other into Boston as Alexandre Burrows recorded points on all three goals to defeat Boston 3-2 in overtime. Most people think he should not even have played in the game considering his controversial incident Wednesday night. Had he not played, the result of last nights game could have been different.

We didn’t have to wait 59 minutes for the first goal to be scored, as Burrows got the first goal of the game on the power play at 12:12 of the first period. Earning the second assist, Sami Salo kept the puck in the Boston zone as the Bruins tried to clear the puck but Salo used his body to keep the puck in the zone. He passed the puck to Chris Higgins who then fed Burrows with a wrist shot that went past Tim Thomas.

The only scoring of the second period came in a span of 2:35 when Boston was able to solve Roberto Luongo twice. The first came when Milan Lucic snuck the puck past the right leg of a sprawling Luongo at the 9:00 mark of the second period. His goal was assisted by Johnny Boychuk and David Krejci.

It is no secret that the Bruins have had an atrocious power play in the playoffs, but that all changed when Mark Recchi became the oldest player to score a goal in the Stanley Cup Final. The Bruins have a 8.6 percent success rate in the playoffs on the power play. They are 14th of the 16 playoff teams and the two teams worse than them (New York and Pittsburgh) did not make it past the first round. At age 43 years and 123 days, he overtook Igor Larinov’s record when The Professor scored the game-winning goal in triple over time in 2002 at Carolina. Recchi was screening Luongo and was able to deflect the puck into the net at 11:35.

The game tying goal was scored by Daniel Sedin at 9:37. A Sedin found the scoresheet for the first time in the playoffs when Zdeno Chara lost the puck behind his own goal line and the Canucks were able to set up shop in the Bruins zone which resulted with Daniel Sedin finding a wide open net after a couple blocked shots in front of Tim Thomas which led to the Bruins goalie being out of position.

As stated earlier, if you either went to get a beverage flipped the channel, or even blinked during the intermission, you would have missed the game winning goal by the same trio who were in on the game tying goal: Burrows, Alexander Edler, and Daniel Sedin. 11 seconds into the overtime period, Boston win the faceoff, the defensive partner of Chara sent the puck up the boards. Sedin passed the puck to Burrows as he was skating into the zone. Thomas made the mistake of playing the angle too aggressively which led to him being out of position. Burrows was then able to bank the puck off the boards behind the net to give him extra space between himself and Chara and was able to sneak the puck into the net to give his team a 2-0 series lead.

In addition to Thomas being too far out of position (he was still behind the goal line when the puck entered the net), Chara made the mistake of not finding a way to take down Burrows to keep him away from the puck. It was the second-fastest game winning goal in the Stanley Cup Final history, two seconds slower than Brian Skrudland’s game winner for Montreal against Calgary in 1986.

Thomas made 30 saves on 33 shots. Luongo stopped 28 of 30 shots for the win. Each championship series since the end of the lockout has seen a team take a 2-0 series lead. The only team not to win the Stanley Cup was the 2009 Detroit Red Wings. Going even further back to the modern age of the NHL since the 1967 expansion. Game 3 is tomorrow night in Boston at 8:00 p.m. on Versus.