The game was literally on the toe of Andrei Svechnikov's stick. Late in the first overtime, the sensational sophomore forward was behind the Boston Bruins net, moving from his left to his right. He flattened his blade and flipped the puck onto it. He was ready and poised to try his third lacrosse goal of the season, lifting the puck and dropping it over Tuukka Rask's right shoulder.
Matt Carlo didn't miss the highlights of the first two, and you can be sure the Bruins didn't omit the clips from their scouting package. The Bruins defenseman skated directly to Rask's right post and reached for Svechnikov's stick with his own, knocking the puck loose and denying the Carolina Hurricanes what would have been one of the greatest overtime goals in NHL history.
Instead, the Bruins took Game 1 on the most expected of goals, Patrice Bergeron the trailer on a three-on-four rush to beat a lost-at-sea Petr Mrazek as the Bruins won the battle of top lines and the game, 73 seconds into the second overtime, 4-3.
Joel Edmundson started the scoring on assists from Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen and Svechnikov had the chance of a lifetime, but Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak scored twice, the last the winner in the seventh overtime period played in Toronto in less than 24 hours.
The extended delay from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoff series seemed to hurt the Hurricanes more than the Bruins, who were coming off a lackluster performance in the round-robin portion of the postseason while the Hurricanes cooled their skates after sweeping the Rangers. The Bruins dominated large swaths of the game while the Hurricanes continued to tempt fate with penalties.
"The first couple periods," Brock McGinn said, "we didn't get to our game at all."
A year ago, when the Hurricanes squandered a lead in the opening game of the conference finals against the Bruins, they walked away grumbling about the officiating instead of their own mistakes, and were never again themselves in the series. Their complaints on Wednesday were more grounded in reality, both about their own subpar play and the officiating _ and this time around their penalty-kill was up to the latter challenge, going 4-for-4 and tacking on a short-handed goal.
They had a legitimate gripe with not only how Boston's second goal was scored but how the play was officiated. It started with what looked like a hand pass and ended with the puck being swiped from under Petr Mrazek's glove. The Hurricanes challenged the hand pass and lost because the NHL ruled Mrazek had possession of the puck _ which means the same officials should have ruled the play dead.
It was some classic NHL stuff. It shouldn't have been a goal, but because the Hurricanes chose the wrong questionable call to dispute, not only did Boston's goal count, the Bruins got a power play out of it! That McGinn finished a short-handed breakaway only moments later didn't take the sting out of it.
"This is why the league's a joke, in my opinion, on these things," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour told The News & Observer. "That one is a crime scene."
Nor did the phantom tripping penalty called on Brady Skjei late in the first overtime, only a few shifts after he had his own stick slashed in two with no call. The Hurricanes killed that penalty, including the 24 seconds on fresh ice to start the second overtime, only to mishandle a routine rush going the other direction and get this series off on the wrong foot.
But for all that, there was no debate that the Bruins were the better team, by a wide margin at times, and not only were they deserved winners _ that's now five straight over the Hurricanes in the postseason _ but they did to the Hurricanes what they usually do to everybody else.
"Our style is a forechecking team, playing in their end, grinding them out," Hurricanes center Jordan Staal said. "They did that to us tonight. You could tell it started to wear on us a little bit."
Carlo denied Svechnikov glory. Now the Hurricanes have less than 29 hours to figure out how to deny the Bruins a 2-0 lead.
