A little bit late in putting this one up but there were 2 big games on Friday night as both Detroit and Philadelphia needed to win to keep their Playoff challenges alive.
Boston had home ice advantage against the Flyers and made full use of it, winning the game 5-1 and sweeping the Flyers 4-0. Their were no mistakes this time around and they have had slayed their demons after last years collapse at this stage.
Lucic gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 12.02 in the 1st with a powerplay goal. Good work from Krejci got the puck to Horton at the side of the net and he tapped it quickly for Lucic to fire the wrist shot into the net.
The Flyers levelled the game in the 2nd period with Richards blocking a puck and racing out of his zone, 2 on 1 with Versteeg and feeding the latter a pass that allowed him a clear path in on Thomas. A quick deke and backhand shot got the puck into the net and the game level. The extra space on the ice coming as it was a 4 on 4 goal.
It was a Bruins blitz in the 3rd period though as they scored 4 unanswered goals, 2 of them being empty netters at the end.
Boychuk fired a rolling puck high gloveside on Bobrovsky with only 2.42 of the period gone and then Lucic got his 2nd of the game at 15.03 as the Flyers lost the puck on their own blue line and he skated in unchallenged and wristed the puck through the netminder.
Marchand wristed the puck into the empty net at 18.05 from outside the offensive zone after his 1st attempt hit a defenceman's skates infront of him and then Paille with 25 seconds left was stood near the crease and stole Campbell's goal as he put it on net and Paile touched it in with his stick.
A comprehensive win and a comprehensive white wash in the series. Scores of 7-3, 3-2, 5-1 and 5-1 saw the Bruins through, out scoring their opponents 20-6 in total. If Tampa Bay were impressive the way they managed to beat the Conference winning Caps in 4 games then this was just as impressive as Boston didn't just win games by the odd goal, in 3 of them they battered the Flyers.
Boston Bruins v Tampa Bay Lightning is the Eastern Conference Final then and boy, that is going to be a hell of a series.
Detroit also needed a win to keep their hopes alive after losing 3 games to the Sharks by 1 goal and 2 of them in overtime. However, this time it was the Redwings who got the win by 1 goal even though at one point it looked like they were going to repeat last years game 4 and blow out the Sharks by more.
A blistering start saw the take a 3-0 lead inside 18.01 of the 1st period. First Bertuzzi made a fantastic move as he skated from the red and into the offensive zone, pulled a spin-o-rama and backhanded the puck from the circle that went right up into the top corner past Niemi's glove.
Lidstrom then blasted in a slap shot as Niemi kicked a long rebound from a Cleary play right onto the Detroit captain's stick. Boyle got tangled up with Niemi and stopped his own netminder getting across quick enough to the shot.
Lidstrom then added a 3rd on the powerplay as he controlled a chipped pass from Zetterberg on his pads and batted the puck out of the air and into the net.
A perfect period was slightly ruined 15 seconds later as Couture got one back for San Jose as he fired a shot from behind the goal line, the puck squeezing under the blocker arm of Howard and in.
This was the start of a steady come back by the Sharks as they came out in the 2nd a different team and played much better than they had in the 1st. Boyle got the score to 3-2 at 13.44 as Wellwood made a good play behind the net, skating the puck out and waiting for the defenceman to skate in unmarked at the back door. A simple feed across as Detroit's defence left Boyle unmarked and he fired it in past Howard.
It was 3-3 on ly 1.14 into the 3rd period as Heatley was just left free infront of the Redwings net and Clowe found him with a pass from the boards behind the net. With all the time in the world, Heatley put it quickly past Howard on his stick side.
It looked as if we were heading to another overtime period when Detroit upped their game again in the last 5 minutes and found the game winning goal with just 1.27 left on the clock.
Brian Rafalski took a shot that was blocked infront of the net and Eaves picked up the puck and made a pass across to Darren Helm who one timed the puck past a sprawling Niemi to send the fans at the Joe wild. (And sent me jumping off the sofa and around the room).
Another good game that saw the Redwings play outstanding for 20 minutes before San Jose picked their game up and gradually get themselves back into the game. In coming from 3 down it gave the Sharks all the momentum until that last 5 minutes where Detroit got back to playing like they did at the start of the game and got the all important goal.
Sunday night for game 6 back in San Jose then. It will be interesting to see if Detroit can get another back or if they will bow out at the same stage as they did last season.
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