The New York Times
Published: June 8, 2013
BOSTON — The game had ended, the handshakes and pleasantries had been exchanged, and the Bruins
gathered in their black jerseys and white hats for a team picture
surrounding the Prince of Wales Trophy, given to the winner of the
Eastern Conference finals.
Charles Krupa/Associated Press
The Bruins celebrating their sweep of Sidney Crosby, left, and the Penguins.
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Superstition says that players should only pose with the trophy and not
touch it, for the only one that merits holding and hoisting is the
Stanley Cup. The Bruins will get that opportunity starting this week.
Six weeks ago, the prospect of Boston’s winning the conference title, or
even still playing in June, seemed close to preposterous. The Bruins
stumbled their way into the playoffs, winning two of their last eight
games in a lockout-compressed schedule made tougher by two postponements
because of the Boston Marathon bombings and a third to a snowstorm.
They fell from the No. 2 spot in the conference to No. 4 with a
season-ending home loss to Ottawa. They proceeded to blow a 3-1 lead in
the first round to Toronto and found themselves trailing, 4-1, midway
through the third period of Game 7.
Then, something happened — the Bruins cannot explain it — and they have
never been the same. Since Game 6 of the Toronto series, the Bruins have
won 9 of 10 games, and the only loss came in overtime. They have been a
defensive juggernaut with opportunistic scoring and solid goaltending.
The Bruins rallied for three goals to tie the Maple Leafs, two of them
coming with the goalie pulled in the final two minutes. The winner came
in overtime.
“It certainly catapulted us into our level of our play and performance,”
General Manager Peter Chiarelli said Saturday. “You could see the team
pick itself up. It wasn’t really a switch. I think it was more of a
realization to these guys, like, ‘Hey, we had better get this thing
done.’ We waited a little long. But it certainly was a boost to their
play the rest of the way, without question.”
Boston dispatched the Rangers in five games and improbably swept the vaunted Penguins in the conference finals, a series in which Pittsburgh, with the N.H.L.’s most productive offense, never held a lead and managed only two goals.
“If we look back at that Game 7, we wouldn’t be here anymore,” said
Bruins center David Krejci, who leads all playoff scorers. “We would be
done. The Rangers would have beat us. We’ve done a pretty good job to
stay in the moment. We took it game by game. Right now, we’re talking
about the final.”
The dismantling of the high-flying Penguins included holding their top
three playoff scorers, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Sidney Crosby,
without a point in the four games. Letang still leads the N.H.L. in
playoff assists with 13. Malkin is still tied with Krejci at No. 2 with
12. Jarome Iginla, who spurned the Bruins for the Penguins at the trade
deadline, also had no points.
In a fitting denouement, an inoffensive 35-foot wrist shot by Iginla —
only his fourth shot of the series — proved to be the Penguins’ final
one. Goalie Tuukka Rask, who had been ordinary in much of the first two
rounds, easily caught it to conclude an extraordinary series: two goals
allowed and a .985 save percentage in the series.
“Right now, he’s in a zone that you hope he can hold on to,” Bruins
Coach Claude Julien said of Rask. “Without that kind of goaltending, you
don’t get a chance at winning a Cup.”
The Bruins know. In 2011, Tim Thomas was nearly unbeatable in the
Stanley Cup finals against Vancouver, allowing eight goals in seven
games. But he really did not turn into a fortress that postseason until
Game 7 of the conference finals, when he shut out Tampa Bay. In the
previous six games of that series, Thomas allowed 19 goals. Rask has
allowed 30 goals in 16 games — three in the last five.
The turnaround by Rask epitomizes the Bruins’ about-face. Throughout the
Toronto series and even early in the Rangers series, Julien kept
referring to his team as a Jekyll-and-Hyde club, never sure which one
would show up. Injuries contributed to the problem, as three regulars on
defense were injured in the Toronto series.
But, as the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The
Bruins hardly looked like Stanley Cup contenders heading into the
playoffs and were a corpse-in-waiting in Game 7 against Toronto. Now,
they’re playing for a chance to win a second Stanley Cup in three
seasons.
“The peaks and valleys of a season sometimes pay off a lot more than
people give credit for, because you certainly grow from those tough
times, you learn from those things, it makes you a better team down the
road,” Julien said.
Julien continued: “I thought this year had its ups and downs; it was a
tough schedule. But right now we’re probably playing some of our best
hockey of the season.”
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