For most of the playoffs, Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask has had to bail his team out of a lot of tough situations and steal a few games for the Bruins. This was not one of those games. He did make 28 saves to earn his third shutout of the post-season, but Chicago's offense was basically non-existent last night. The Hawks had possession of the puck for the majority of the game and had an advantage in shot attempts, but not many of them were threatening. The Blackhawks had to play this game without one of their best forwards in Marian Hossa, but even without him they should have been able to produce more than eight scoring chances at even strength. That kind of offensive production is just woeful even against a solid defensive team like the Bruins. Couple that with the Hawks having an atrocious special teams performance and the Bruins got themselves a fairly easy win to take a 2-1 series lead.

This was a very sloppy game, as both teams looked pretty out of sync and were having a lot of difficulty controlling the puck in the bad ice conditions. As a result, this was a fairly low-event game with neither team creating that much offense. Although, the Hawks have much more than the bad ice to blame for their performance last night since this was just an ugly performance all-around.

Last night, the Bruins played what was probably the worst first period of any game of this year's post-season. For those 20 minutes, they were outshot 19-4, outchaned 13-2 and thoroughly dominated by the Blackhawks in all phases. It was on pace to be one of the most lopsided Stanley Cup Final games in recent memory but despite their horrific performance in the first period, the Bruins were only trailing 1-0. They have goaltender Tuukka Rask to thank for this. He kept the Bruins in the game after the team in front of him sleepwalked through the first period and they could have easily had to come back from a bigger deficit if it wasn't for him.

This isn't the first time that Rask has has to bail his team out of a tough situation and I get the feeling that it won't be the last, considering how good of a team Chicago is at even strength. The good news is that Boston matches up with them fairly well and they were able to contain them well for the next two periods. After getting bulldozed for the first 20 minutes, Boston outchanced Chicago 7-3 in the second and third periods and did an excellent job of containing the Hawks most dangerous forwards. Bruins coach Claude Julien stated that his team "started playing" after the first period and that's a fairly accurate assessment when you look at the period-by-period stats.

There are going to be a lot of people saying that the Bruins were "lucky" to win this game and in many ways they were. They had no business being down by only one goal after that first period and Chicago also had a goal waved off, so it easily could have been at least a 2-0 game. However, I think they deserve some credit for tightening up after that and shutting down Chicago's offense. They were also the superior team in overtime, which is ultimately what won them this game and why this is a tied series heading back to Boston. You have to be good and lucky to win a Cup and the Bruins were both last night.

The Stanley Cup Finals got off to a fantastic start last night with the Chicago Blackhawks defeating the Boston Bruins in a thrilling overtime game off a deflection goal by Andrew Shaw. Looking at the shot reports for this game will tell you that the Blackhawks dominated the Bruins for the majority of the contest and Tuukka Rask was the main reason why Boston stayed alive for so long. This is only partially true because while the Blackhawks had the puck a lot and were the better team, the Bruins did not get outplayed by nearly as much as the shot clock indicated and they were very close to taking a 1-0 series lead on many occasions. 

Not many teams are going to win the territorial battle against the Hawks while playing on the road and the Bruins are no different, so while they were "outshot" by 51 at even strength, they did a fairly good job of either getting in the way of most of Chicago's opportunities or keeping them to the outside. This isn't a strategy that is going to win them the series, but I see them having difficulty keeping up with the Hawks at even strength, so the most they can do is try to limit Chicago's chances, make Corey Crawford work as much as possible and win the special teams battle.

The Bruins were able to do this to some degree last night because they were only outchanced by three at even strength, tested Crawford with 27 chances of their own and got a power play goal while blanking the Hawks on all three of their opportunities. Chicago was still the better team overall, but take away those two fortuitous deflections that found their way past Rask and this game could have had a different result. You create your own luck in this sport at times, though and the Hawks definitely had control of the play for long sections of this game and earned this win. Losing a game like this can be deflating, but the Bruins don't have much to panic about yet. Chicago will make a lot of teams look bad on the stat-sheet and this one could have ended up much worse.

Despite throwing 54 on Boston's goal, 29 of them being scoring chances, the Penguins could only get one past goaltender Tuukka Rask last night and that predictably was not enough to win them the game as the Bruins defeated them 2-1 in overtime. The loss puts Pittsburgh in a 3-0 hole and on the brink of elimination in the series. The Pens have no one but themselves to blame for being in this situation since their play in Games 1 & 2 was sub-bar but last night was a game that they played well enough to win. They outplayed the Bruins by a pretty significant margin and looked like a much better team compared to the first two games. The only problem was that they just couldn't finish and you can point to Rask & some bad puck luck (i.e. goal posts) as the reason for that. 

It seemed like a black cloud was hanging over the Penguins during last night's game because no matter how much offense they created, they could not get anything past Rask and it resulted in the game going to double overtime. In overtime, the team that makes the first mistake is usually the one that loses but both Rask and Vokoun were able to keep their teams in this one for awhile. The Bruins were the team who eventually got the reward, though as Patrice Bergeron got the inside edge on Pittsburgh defenseman Brooks Orpik and it allowed him to tip in a centering pass from Brad Marchand to put the Bruins one game away from the Stanley Cup Finals.

Had this been Game 1 or Game 2, I would say that the Penguins would still be in this, but I can really see this ending in a sweep because of how deflating this loss is for Pittsburgh. This was a game that they played well enough to win and now that they let it slip out of their hands, the room for error is very slim. It's really hard for me to see Pittsburgh pulling off a comeback when you take that and their poor play in the first two games into consideration. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems very unlikely at this point even though they looked like a better team in Game 3.

The Bruins took a 2-0 series lead over the Penguins by coasting their way to a 6-1 win on Monday night. It was one of those games where the underlying numbers don't matter as much because the game was pretty much over after the first period. Boston scored on their first scoring chance of the game and ended up leading 4-1 after 20 minutes thanks to some horrific defensive play and sub-par goaltending from the Penguins. After that, the Bruins focused on protecting their lead rather than pouring it on and it really frustrated the Pens, as they had a lot of issues with getting past Boston's defensive shell. Claude Julien tends to play a trap when his team has a lead and that's exactly what we saw tonight.

With the Bruins sitting back and leading by three or more goals for 40+ minutes, the final numbers from this game were very misleading. The Penguins actually outchanced the Bruins 15-13 overall and 12-11 at even strength while having a sizable territorial advantage on top of that. However, the Pens advantage in scoring chances becomes less meaningful when you take into consideration that they recorded over half of them in the third period when the game was basically out of reach. Boston had some defensive lapses and Rask made a few very good saves, but the Pens barely threatened at all when the score was reasonably close. Pittsburgh played an awful first period and it allowed Boston to basically run away and coast their way to a 2-0 series lead.

Whether it was their strong power play, goal-scoring talent or ability to capitalize on other team's mistakes, Pittsburgh has been able to bail themselves out of a lot of tough situations this post-season. That has come to a halt these last two games and it doesn't surprise me. Boston has better goaltending than the Islanders, so Pittsburgh is going to have trouble playing from behind and their own goalies are less likely to cover up their team's mistakes because the Bruins have a more dangerous lineup than the Senators. It all equates to the Penguins struggling through this series unless their team's play improves.

Pittsburgh has the ability to at least match Boston, if not beat them, at even strength so the situation isn't hopeless but it's getting ugly fast.

If you're wondering why I did not have any scoring chances posted from the last round, it's a long story. I'll just say that I've had a limited amount of spare time the last few weeks and was not able to post any analysis of the second round. Despite that minor setback, I should be back in full force for the Conference Finals and will provide a closer look at the underlying stats from every game. Robert from the Kings SB Nation Blog, Jewels From the Crown will be taking care of the Western Conference matchup, so I will be predominately focus on the Eastern Conference Final between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins.

As some of you might remember, I tracked the scoring chances from the Pens first round matchup against the Islanders and for the majority of that series, they were outplayed at even strength. One of the main reasons why they were able to advance past New York in six games is because the Islanders got a tragic performance out of goaltender Evgeni Nabokov, but another big reason was the Penguins deceisviely winning the special teams battle. In that series alone, the Pens scored seven goals with the man advantage and their power play was clicking at almost 30% heading into last night's game. In my preview of this series, I mentioned that while the Bruins might be a superior even strength team, they were going to have to slow down this Penguins power play to have a chance and last night, they were able to do just that. Keep in mind that "slow down" and "shut down" are two different things and what the Bruins did to the Pens power play last night falls under the former category.

Boston was able to kill off all four of Pittsburgh's power plays, but a large part of that was due to the play of goaltender Tuukka Rask, who stopped all eight of Pittsburgh's power play scoring chances. Since the Bruins were able to survive that, they could focus more on dictating the play at even strength and they were able to do just that, especially in the third period. The Bruins may have gotten outchanced 21-17 overall, but they had a 14-12 edge at even strength and the fact that they were able to blank the Pens on the power play ended up being one of the key deciding factors in this game. 

After the jump, we'll take a closer look at what went right for the Bruins in their 3-0 win as well as what went wrong for the Penguins. 

Overall

Note: Pittsburgh's chances are in black & the Bruins chances are in yellow.

This had the potential to turn into a special teams battle with each team spending a combined 16 minutes on the power play, but the Penguins not converting on any of their power play chances allowed the Bruins to win this game at even strength, which is exactly what they did. All three goals of their goals came during five-on-five play and they were able to shut down the Penguins in the third period by allowing only one scoring chance in the final 10 minutes of the game.

The Bruins had the edge in scoring chances, but I think this game was a little more even than the final score indicates. Rask was able to bail his team out of a few tough situations, especially early in the game and the Penguins also failed to capitalize on many of the Bruins mistakes. At the other end, Tomas Vokoun let in a pretty soft goal to David Krejci on the Bruins first scoring chance of the game and the Pens were forced to climb an uphill battle after that despite having a pretty big advantage in scoring chances up until that point. I don't want to say that Rask "stole" this win for the Bruins since they outchance Pittsburgh at even strength & gave him three goals in support, but I'm not sure if the Bruins win this game if Rask hadn't played as well as he did in the first two periods. He was simply outstanding and gave Boston some breathing room before they took over.

As for Pittsburgh's goalie situation, I wouldn't freak out too much over Vokoun's performance. Werethe first two goals he let in weak? Absolutely. Did Pittsburgh get out-goaltended? Yes, but he wasn't the main reason the Penguins lost this game and the Pens are going to be in trouble if they rely on goaltending to win this series. Instead of pointing fingers at Vokoun, there are a lot of of other players who could share the blame for this loss.

Penguins Individual Scoring Chances

Best EV Forward: Tyler Kennedy +5

Worst EV Forward: Sidney Crosby -4

Best EV Defenseman: Douglas Murray +3

Worst EV Defenseman: Paul Martin -5

The Penguins top guns all performed well on the power play, but they were all a disaster at even strength when it came to defensive play. I thought Crosby, Malkin, Neal and Kunitz were good when it came to creating chances both at even strenght and on the power play, and they were. The only problem was they gave up just as much, if not more, in their own zone during five-on-five play. With the talent this team has, it's generally not a good sign when third and fourth liners are the only players in the black.

As bad as the forwards were at even strength, the defense might have been worse and the Penguins blue-liners were also making some horrific mistakes both with and without the puck. The Bruins second goal came immediately after a bad defensive zone turnover by Mark Eaton and Kris Letang trying to play the rebound like an outfielder did'n't help matters. These two had a rough game all around, as did Paul Martin, who was destroyed by the Krejci line. I would say that Pittsburgh should consider changing up their defense corps, but Bylsma did shake things up towards the end of the game and the Penguins worst defensive play came when they had a new defense pairing on the ice.

About eight minutes into the third period, Bylsma had a pairing of Kris Letang and Matt Niskanen on the ice against a broken line combination of the Bruins featuring teir two first line wingers with Gregory Campbell centering them. Niskanen had just turned the puck over in the neutral zone and the Bruins went ther way to create a quick shot in transition. This shot ended up bouncing off Niskanen and going to the corner to the left of the goaltender and was retrieved by Campbell. Both Penguin defensemen along with the low forward, Evgeni Malkin, decided to follow Campbell & the puck, which resulted in this Kodak moment right here.

PIttsburgh wasn't aggressive enough on the puck and it allowed Campbell to make a pass to Lucic at the side of the net for a scoring chance and Nathan Horton was able to tap in the rebound for an easy goal. Mental mistakes like this genreally burn teams late in games and this is what happened to the Penguins here. A lot of the errors I saw on Pittsburgh's side were related to mental mistakes rather than skill, so I don't think this is anything they can't shake off and overcome. The Bruins played a very strong game, though and had a lot of standouts at even strength.

Bruins Individual Scoring Chances

Best EV Forward: Brad Marchand +5

Worst EV Forward: Tyler Seguin -5

Best EV Defenseman: Dennis Seidenberg +4

Worst EV Defenseman: Torey Krug -3

While Pittsburgh's top-six struggled to get a lot going at even strength, Boston's put on a clinic. Their first line technically produced all three goals with Krejci scoring a pair, Bergeron's line dominated Crosby's and they all played terrific defensively on top of that. Bergeron's line surrendered only one scoring chance the entire game and saw some terrific play out of Jaromir Jagr, who had four total scoring chances. It's almost a shame that he doesn't have a goal because he looked like one of Boston's best players last night and was one of their most active offensively. I think most know that he is playing well, though despite not getting rewarded for it. Really, just about everyone except for Boston's third line played well. The Seguin-Kelly-Peverley trio were inexplicably terrible defensively but other than that, it was nearly a flawless game at even strength for the B's forwards.

The Bruins defense corps also did their job in limiting Pittsburgh's top forwards with Chara & Seidenberg having a very strong game in particular. Their defensive game was not the best and they were a tad carless with the puck but both came away net positives by a pretty big margin in the end. Andrew Ference also had a solid game in his return to the lineup, playing very well against Pittsburgh's first line.

The only area I would be concerned about for the Bruins is the penalty kill, as their second unit got absolutely lit up. The Penguins are not going to come away empty handed the next time if the Bruins keep allowing so many chances on the PK and they are somewhat lucky they managed to come out of those stretches without allowing a goal. 

Dan Bylsma seemed content with letting Crosby play against the Bergeron line and having Malkin face-off against Krejci for this game, but I could easily see this changing for Game 2. After how well Bergeron's line played last night and how poor the Kelly line did, it wouldn't shock me if Bylsma tries to get Crosby or Malkin out against that trio while he has the last change. How good was Bergeron against Crosby, though? At even strength, it's hard to do a better job of containing a star player.

Head to Head at Five-on-Five

The Bruins top-six beat Pittsburgh's to a pulp at even strength and Chara/Seidenberg also took care of Crosby's line. I could see Bylsma switching up the matchups to get Crosby or Malkin out against Boston's third line more often because they did not play well and it might be wise to keep one of these two away from Bergeron. I'm not sure what he can do to keep them away from Chara since Julien usually does a good job of keeping him out there against both first and second lines. Another thing Bylsma should consider is making sure Eaton doesn't see the ice against the Krejci line. The entire defense played poorly against them, but Eaton in particular was crushed and I have to think that one of Niskanen or Murray would be a better option to pair with Letang.

Yesterday, the Rangers forced what is now the third Game 7 of this year's playoffs by defeating the Caps 1-0. Washington may have a new coach, but last night's game had a very similar vibe to the series these two teams played in the second round last season. Aside from the second period, neither team managed to produce much offense and the Rangers were playing a very conservative style in the third period when they had a 1-0 lead. IT didn't make for the most exciting hockey, but I'm sure the Rangers won't have many complaints about that since they got the job done and kept their post-season hopes alive.

All that stands in their way of advancing is winning one game on the road and unfortunately for them, they have been pretty bad when playing at Verizon Center this post-season. They've been outchanced in two out of three games and haven't been bailed out by goaltending because they've only given Lundqvist two total goals during that time. It's really been a case for Murphy's Law for the Rangers when they've played away from Madison Square Garden, but fans can at least be comforted by the fact that Game 7's are a coin flip and any result is possible.

Anybody who thought the Islanders couldn't top the heartbreak of Game Three was proven wrong last night after they were eliminated from the playoffs last night by the Pittsburgh Penguins on the heels of an overtime goal by Brooks Orpik. The whole game was pretty similar to how Game Three went where the Islanders vastly outplayed the Penguins in just about every area but goaltending and ended up taking the loss because of that. The only difference with this game was that the Penguins didn't need the help of their power play to catapult them in front. Instead, they were able to take advantage of a few costly mistakes by the Islander defense and got a couple of generous bounces on two of their goals.

At the end of the day, the blame for this loss is probably going to be put on the shoulders of goaltender Evgeni Nabokov and he can be noted as the scapegoat this series, there were a few other factors that contributed to the Islanders demise. The biggest one being at the other end of the crease in Tomas Vokoun. The Pittsburgh netminder may have let three goals get by him, but he helped carry his team out of numerous rough spots last night and his finest moment came in the second period where he stopped six Islander power play scoring chances. The Penguins gave Vokoun four goals in support but I think this series would have been heading for seven games without him because the Islanders dominated Pittsburgh for a good portion of last night's game and outchanced them 25-12 .

Vokoun's play kept Pittsburgh in the game and made each mistake that much more costly for the Islanders, because whenever you let a team like the Pens hang around, there is a good chance that they'll find the back of the net. That's just the way they've worked this series and that, along with Nabokov's shoddy goaltending, ended up winning them the game and the series. I feel that the Islanders deserved better because they outplayed Pittsburgh in four out of six games but they sort of played with fire with the penalties in Game Three and couldn't finish last night and these types of things can doom you in playoff games. It's unfortunately, but that's the playoffs work sometimes.

The Islanders shouldn't hang their heads too low because they mostly played some very entertaining hockey and really gave the Penguins a run for their money in a series that many expected to be a laugher after Game One. I think they would have had a better shot if Nabokov played anything close to the level of an NHL goalie, even if the Penguins finishing ability made him look a little worse than he usually is, because they really were the better team and gave it all they had last night. 

The Wild/Blackhawks series was easily the most lopsided matchup in the Western Conference and the final result ended up being that way with the Blackhawks defeating the Wild in five games and outscoring them 17-7 in the process. The Wild put up a good fight in Games 1 & 3 but in the end, they didn't have the depth to compete with the Blackhawks and were just overpowered for the majority of this series. It seemed that the Hawks had an answer for just about every method the Wild tried against them and were easily able to control just about every game at even strength. That was the case last night. 

This isn't to say that the Wild were completely awful because there were parts of Game Five where they played well and they got off to a good start, but they couldn't solve goaltender Corey Crawford and that ended up coming back to haunt them. Much like we saw in the Islanders/Penguins game, if you let a team with Chicago's fire-power hang around long enough, they are eventually going to hurt you and the Hawks did that in a big way last night by taking over the game in the second period with three goals. That's how most of this series has gone, though. The Wild have done enough to stay somewhat competitive in games but they've either been unable to finish or lose focus after one mistake and let the entire game spiral out of control. I guess that's why they're just an eighth seed, though.

Going into this series, I had a feeling that goaltending was going to be a deciding factor and by that, I meant that the team who got slightly better goaltending would be the one who advanced. The Penguins had a decisive edge in this department based on their regular season numbers but after Marc-Andre Fleury experienced yet another playoff meltdown, their goaltending in this series was about on par with the Islanders and that isn't a good thing. To make matters worse, the Pens had been grossly outplayed in two out of three games so the margin for error became increasingly slim as the series went on and Fleury's terrible play was magnified. It got to the point where Pittsburgh needed their goaltender to help them persevere through stretches of bad play and possibly steal a game or two for them if needed. Fleury wasn't capable of doing that this series but fortunately for the Penguins, have a very capable "back-up" goaltender in Tomas Vokoun who they can go to when Fleury has a rough patch. Bylsma wisely elected to start him in Game Five and it paid off tremendously.

The Penguins have been getting outplayed for the better part of this series and they looked very sluggish to begin Game Five. The Islanders game planned for them well and completely shut down Pittsburgh's forecheck for the first 20 minutes. They also forced a lot of neutral zone turnovers to create rushes the other way and it really helped them establish a territorial advantage to take the crowd out of the game early. While this was a good road start, the one downside of the first period for the Islanders is that they didn't score and this is where the play of Vokoun played such a huge factor. It's unfair to say that Fleury wouldn't have been able to do the same thing but the Penguins being able to get the saves they need & escape the first period with no score was a big deal.

After that first period, Pittsburgh could regroup a little bit and they opened the floodgates in the next two periods. They outchanced the Islanders 15-8 in the final 40 minutes of the game after recording only two in the entire first period and were able to coast their way to a 4-0 win. The Penguins gave Vokoun plenty of goal support and played a good defensive game towards the end but he was the main reason they survived that first period and it gave his team a chance to regroup. Again, I don't think it's fair to say that Fleury wouldn't have been able to do the same, but Pittsburgh has desperately needed good goaltending for the last four games and they got that from Vokoun.