The Bruins began their journey to the Stanley Cup Final way back on May Day, May 1, with a 4-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs at TD Garden. From there, to last night, the B’s developed something resembling a “team of destiny” identity, doing the unthinkable against the Leafs, crushing the Rangers, clobbering the Penguins and consistently playing late into the night and into the early morning with the Blackhawks. The run will likely be long remembered by Boston, a city looking for a late spring and early summer distraction from the bombings at the signature sporting event on the city’s calendar back in mid-April. The Bruins delivered with their welcomed distraction, but they just missed out on delivering the Stanley Cup to the city for the second time in three years as they fell to Chicago, 3-2, last night in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final at TD Garden.
Chicago absolutely stunned the Boston crowd with two goals in 17 seconds as Bryan Bickell scored with 76 seconds remaining and Dave Bolland found the puck off the left post and rifled it past Tuukka Rask with 59 seconds left to all but end the Bruins’ 2013 season.
The Blackhawks had pulled goaltender Corey Crawford off the ice with around 90 seconds remaining and were in desperation mode. Seconds later, it was the Bruins that were suddenly scrambling.
The B’s had controlled play for the majority of Game 6. At the 12:05 mark of the third period, David Krejci fiddled with the puck behind Crawford’s net to set up a point-blank shot by Milan Lucic which crawled on the back of Crawford’s neck before finding a home in the back of the net. Lucic’s goal put Boston up by a familiar score in the 2013 Cup Final, 2-1.
The Bruins also put tremendous pressure on Crawford in the early-going and it paid off in the form of a Chris Kelly goal 7:19 into the first period. Boston controlled the puck off a faceoff and Tyler Seguin fed Kelly for a strike that resulted in, arguably, one of the loudest outbursts in the 18-year history of TD Garden.
The Bruins had 10 shots on goal to the Blackhawks’ four through 13 minutes of the first.
One play that will likely haunt Bruins fans is Krejci’s missed opportunity off a brilliant centering pass by Brad Marchand late in the first on a B’s power play.
The Bruins also had the faceoff advantage through one period as they led Chicago, 17-7.
Patrice Bergeron received a standing ovation early in the game as he was playing with an undisclosed injury that caused him to miss the better part of two periods in last Saturday night’s Game 5 loss in Chicago.
