The Boston Bruins looked poised to make a quick playoff exit as they went down 2-0 to the Buffalo Sabres twelve minutes into Game 2 yesterday afternoon at the HSBC Arena.
The NHL's lowest-scoring team found their non-existant scoring touch and outscored Buffalo 5-1 from there to even up the series with a 5-3 win.
Zdeno Chara and Michael Ryder were the likely and extremely unlikely suspects to pull the Bruins out of the gutter.
Tyler Myers and Matt Ellis had given Buffalo the 2-0 lead in the first period before Ryder (from Vladimir Sobotka and Blake Wheeler) and Chara (from Patrice Bergeron and Johnny Boychuk) tied it up in the second period.
A bad giveaway by Milan Lucic in his defensive end, led to Jason Pominville's goal from Tyler Ennis. Buffalo went into the third period up 3-2 and they hadn't lost a game this season when they led going into the third.
The B's tied it at 3 when Ryder finished off a perfect odd-man rush with Andrew Ference and Wheeler. Chara scored the game-winner a few minutes later when his shot from the point found its way past Ryan Miller (26 saves). Miroslav Satan and David Krejci assisted on Chara's second tally.
Finally, Mark Recchi fittingly sealed it with an empty-netter with 20 seconds left. After a rough start, Tuukka Rask (26 saves) settled down enough for his first NHL playoff win. To hear the NBC announcers question if he should be pulled in the first period was laughable. Uh, have you boys seen Tim Thomas this season?
Boston comes home to what should be a rocking TD Garden tomorrow night (Marathon Monday/Patriot's Day) for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals. They stole the momentum in the series and there's no reason they can't knock off a very beatable Buffalo squad.
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