Bruins punish Hurricanes on power play, advance to second round

Remember when the Bruins' power play went 0-for-9 in the round-robin and 0-for-4 in Game 1 against Carolina? That seems like a lifetime ago given the way it finished the series and finished off the Hurricanes.

After some lackluster play for the first half of the game Wednesday afternoon, it would be a pair of power-play goals late in the second period that swung Game 5 in the Bruins' favor and lifted them to a 2-1 series-clinching win.

The Bruins join the Lightning in the Eastern Conference second round. They won't know their next opponent until the Flyers-Canadiens and Capitals-Islanders series wrap up. Right now the Flyers and Islanders both hold 3-1 series leads. If both hold on, the Bruins would face the Lightning.

Trailing 1-0 at the time, the Bruins got their first power play of the game with 6:13 left in the second when Brad Marchand sprung Patrice Bergeron on a breakaway and Sebastian Aho was forced to hook Bergeron to prevent a scoring chance. It probably should've been a penalty shot, but the power play wound up suiting the Bruins just fine.

With time winding down on the man advantage, Marchand took a shot that deflected over to Bergeron, who then threw the puck on net. After hitting David Pastrnak's leg in front, it fell perfectly for David Krejci, who got just enough of the loose puck to knock it in despite nearly whiffing. Combined with a later assist, Krejci wrapped up the series with three goals and five assists in five games, as he was the best player in the series from start to finish.

-- David Krejci PP1-1 pic.twitter.com/zkaAU92QvR

With less than a minute to go in the second, the Bruins went back to the power play when Jordan Martinook drove Ondrej Kase's head into the boards. In the final seconds of the period, Pastrnak took a shot that was blocked to the end boards, but Bergeron chased it down, caught Carolina goalie Petr Mrazek snoozing at his post, and banked a shot in off Mrazek's skate to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead.

-- Patrice Bergeron PP2-1 #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/dqFvGmfvab

Both power-play goals came from the Bruins' new-look top unit, with Pastrnak returning but Krejci also remaining in that group. Marchand had moved to more of the net-front role usually occupied by Charlie Coyle or Jake DeBrusk last game, so keeping him there allowed the Bruins to load up that top unit with Pastrnak, Marchand, Bergeron, Krejci and Torey Krug.

Obviously, the results were pretty good, as they were for the power play most of the series. Over the final four games of the series, the Bruins went 5-for-15 (33.3%) on the man advantage.

The first period was fairly even in terms of possession and shots on goal (9-8), but the Hurricanes were much more dangerous when they had the puck, as they had a 10-5 advantage in scoring chances and 5-1 advantage in high-danger chances.

They wound up with a 1-0 lead to show for it heading into the first intermission, as a bad change by the Bruins helped create plenty of space for defenseman Haydn Fleury to walk in from the point and fire a great shot through a Jordan Martinook screen and into the top corner.

The Bruins continued to look a bit sleepy for much of the second period, until their power play turned the tide of the game late in the period.

While the Bruins couldn't find an insurance goal in the third, including on two more power-play chances, they did a good job clamping down defensively and preventing the Hurricanes from generating too many good chances to tie the game, limiting Carolina to just six shots on goal in the period.

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