Canucks 3 Bruins 2 (OT)
VANCOUVER — Alex Burrows scored 11 seconds into overtime to give the Vancouver Canucks a 3-2 win over the Boston Bruins on Saturday night and a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup final.
Burrows was mobbed by his teammates after scoring his second goal of the night.
The speedy winger collected a puck off the opening faceoff of overtime and broke in on Boston goaltender Tim Thomas.
A diving Thomas forced Burrows to swing around the net. Burrows shook of the check of giant Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara and tucked the puck into the open corner of the far side of the goal.
“Going into overtime you know anything can happen,” Burrows said. “Henrik Sedin won the faceoff. (Thomas) likes to challenge. I knew if I shot it he would stop it. Luckily I was able to get it in on the wrap-around.”
Daniel Sedin forced the overtime when he tied the game at 9:37 of the third period. He took a pass from Burrows, who was in front of the net, then fired a shot over a sprawling Thomas.
“As I said after Game 1, a loss is a loss,” Thomas said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s 5-0 or the way that we lost. Losing stinks no matter what.”
Milan Lucic and Mark Recchi scored for Boston.
The best-of-seven series moves to Boston for games Monday and Wednesday.
“We were up 2-1,” Boston forward David Krejci said. “We did some good things. The positive thing we can take back home with us is that we lost both games by just one goal.”
Vancouver won the opening game 1-0 when Raffi Torres scored with just 18.5 seconds left in the third period.
Game 2 was another goaltenders’ battle between Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo and Thomas. Both are finalists for the Vezina Trophy.
In the first period, a Michael Ryder shot hit Luongo in the face, knocking his mask off. Luongo calmly covered up the puck, then had a chuckle with the linesman as he put his mask back on. In the second he got an arm on a Krejci shot.
Thomas bounced around his net like a rubber ball, challenging shooters and then scrambling back into position. He slid across the crease to stop a wide-open Jannik Hansen in the second period, then got a pad on a Daniel Sedin shot
It was a warm spring day outside Rogers Arena, but that didn’t melt the enthusiasm of a loud, sellout crowd of 18,860.
Veteran Canadian rocker Randy Bachman sang Taking Care of Business on the big screen before the game.
Former Canuck captain Trevor Linden was in the house, raising a cheer from the fans, and the Green Men parked themselves in their seats beside the opposition penalty box. There was even a wedding in one of the suites.
After weeks of speculation and false starts, centre Manny Malhotra was in the Canucks lineup. It was Malhotra’s first game since being hit in the left eye by a puck on March 16, an injury that required several surgeries.
He took his first shift 1:48 into the first period, earning chants of “Manny, Manny” as he won a faceoff.
The Bruins scored goals 2:25 apart in the second period to lead 2-1 heading into the third period.
Lucic made the score 1-1 with Boston’s first goal of the final. He collected the rebound of a Johnny Boychuk shot and fired it under Luongo’s pad.
That ended Luongo’s streak of 137:26 of not allowing a goal, dating back to the third period of Game 5 of the Western Conference final against San Jose.
Recchi gave Boston the lead on a Boston power play. A Chara shot deflected off the shaft of Recchi’s stick past Luongo.
It was just Boston’s sixth power-play goal in 69 attempts during the playoffs and only the second on the road.
“I didn’t like 15 minutes of that second period,” Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said. “I thought we didn’t have our work boots on. We got out-muscled down low in our end and out-muscled in their end, thought they really took it to us.
“But we talked about adjusting different things, especially our work ethic. I thought our guys were real good the last five minutes of that second period and real good in the third period.”
Burrows opened the scoring at 12:12 of the first period with Chara off for interference.
The Bruins failed in a clearing attempt. Chris Higgins slid a puck to Burrows, who scored on a shot from a sharp angle that went under Thomas’s arm.
It was Burrows’ eighth goal of the playoffs and fourth in five games.
“Anybody that follows our team knows he’s a really important part of our team,” Vigneault said. “He plays five-on-five, he plays power-play, and he kills penalties. So, you know, he’s overall one of our go-to guys. Again tonight he came up big in key moments.”