For much of the game, the Bruins competed with the Hurricanes more than they did in their three regular-season games. It didn't matter. The final score wound up just as lopsided as those contests, with Carolina taking Game 1, 5-1.
Despite outshooting Carolina 36-25, the Bruins fell behind 2-0 on a pair of goals late in the second period and couldn’t come back in the third. After cutting the lead to 2-1 early in the final period, they gave up three straight goals down the stretch.
The Bruins controlled play for some pretty lengthy stretches in the first two periods, but they couldn’t finish their chances and couldn’t take advantage of some early leakiness from Carolina goalie Antti Raanta. It felt like the Bruins were going to regret not doing more with their zone time the longer they went without scoring, and sure enough, that was the case.
The decisive swing came late in the second period when the Hurricanes scored twice in a 2:10 span. They did what the Bruins couldn’t and took advantage of some good offensive-zone cycling by getting pucks and bodies to the net.
First it was rookie Seth Jarvis, who went to the front, got position on Hampus Lindholm, and tipped in a Jaccob Slavin shot from the point that was going wide. Then it was Nino Niederreiter, who found a soft spot in the Bruins’ coverage by cycling out high before firing a shot through a handful of bodies that Linus Ullmark never saw.
The Bruins gave themselves some life early in the third period when they cut the lead in half. Charlie McAvoy jumped in on the forecheck and helped win a battle down low that allowed Erik Haula to set up Taylor Hall in the slot for the goal.
That was as close as the Bruins would get, though. The dagger from the Hurricanes came with 12:58 to go, when a bad pinch by Matt Grzelcyk at the offensive blue line gave Carolina a 2-on-1 that ended with Teuvo Teravainen rifling a shot past Ullmark.
The Bruins had a chance to maybe make things interesting when they got a power play with 10 minutes to go, but that wound up just killing their momentum even more. The Bruins repeatedly turned the puck over while trying to enter the zone and never even came close to getting a shot off. Their first two power plays of the night had been a little better -- they actually landed four shots on their first one -- but in the biggest moment, they made life too easy for Carolina’s penalty-killers.
Vincent Trocheck then made it 4-1 with 3:02 to go when he raced down the left wing and flipped an impossible-angle backhand off Ullmark’s helmet and in. Andrei Svechnikov tacked on an empty-netter to finalize the lopsided 5-1 scoreline.
Game 2 is Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in Raleigh.
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