Recap: Bruins survive a wild third period to take Game 5, 4-3

We’ve got Streamables from Chris tonight! If you don’t see the highlight, click the score link in each description to open the video directly.

David Krejci flubs his shot a bit, but hey, it works! The puck trickles through the pads of Sergei Bobrovsky to make it 1-0 Bruins.

Tuukka Rask bails out Brandon Carlo after a rough sequence, denying Cam Atkinson a few times from the doorstep. Still 1-0 Bruins.

Brad Marchand gets the monkey off his back, but not before getting stoned by Bobrovsky. Still, Marchand sticks with the rebound, and it’s 2-0 Bruins.

I still have no idea what happened here. Seth Jones threw the puck at the net, and it apparently went in? It was called no goal on the ice, but was changed to a goal after a lengthy review. 2-1 Bruins.

The Bruins would bounce right back, as David Pastrnak looked off Bobrovsky then toasted him with a wrister, making it 3-1 Bruins in the third.

And then...things got dicey. With the Bruins seemingly in command, Columbus gets back in it off of a great pass by Matt Duchene, and a superb finish by Ryan Dzingel. 3-2 Bruins.

Just a couple of minutes later, a wide-open Dean Kukan wires one over Rask’s shoulder to make it a 3-3 tie.

Guess who? With 88 seconds to go, #88 puts the Bruins ahead again with a deft finish of a great Brad Marchand pass. 4-3 Bruins.

That seemed like a comfortable situation to be in, but Columbus kept pushing...

Tuukka Rask would make a monster save on Cam Atkinson with under 30 seconds left, and then Charlie McAvoy laid out to block an Artemi Panarin shot:

That would be it! Patrice Bergeron won a faceoff with a second to go, and that was all she wrote. The Bruins win Game 5, 4-3, and take a 3-2 lead in the series.

Game notes

• It’s weird, because the good and bad moments of this game were “typical Bruins.” The solid defense and penalty killing, the timely saves from Rask, the (at times) dominant play of the first line? Typical Bruins! The mess in their own end, loose coverage, blowing leads and looking horrible doing it? Typical Bruins! It’s indicative of how this season has gone, really: the Bruins have alternated between dominant and dreadful, at times with no stops in between.
• While the Bruins certainly helped it with loose coverage, the two Columbus goals that tied the game at 3 were fantastic plays. The Dzingel goal was a great shot, yes, but the patience Matt Duchene showed, in traffic, to make that initial pass was outstanding. Similar patience paid dividends on the Kukan goal, as Panarin had everyone in the building thinking shot, only to feather a great pass to the wide-open Kukan. This isn’t to say that the Bruins didn’t screw up, rather that Columbus deserves some credit for putting those plays together.
• Rask is pretty much the only reason the Bruins won this game. He was huge in the second period when the Bruins had to weather a bit of a Columbus storm, and was huge in the final minute, especially on that pad save on Cam Atkinson. Rask looks dialed in, and has, for the past two games at least, been the far better goalie in the series.
• I still have no idea what the NHL saw on that Jones goal. My press box seat was right behind the net on that end, and I didn’t see the ref signal goal. The replays showed at the Garden didn’t show the puck in the net, and neither did the angles I saw on NBC. There were a few angles that made it seem like the puck most have gone in, but my understanding of the rule is that the officials have to actually see the puck over the line to rule it a goal. If there’s another camera angle that made it clear, it would have been nice to have it shared with viewers.
• Marchand showed great resilience, albeit in a split second, on his goal. The initial save by Bobrovsky was unbelievable, bordering on 2011 Tim Thomas levels of nuts. But Marchand had the puck come back to him and pretty much just fired it at the same spot, and it went in. Huge for the Bruins, and huge for the frustration Marchand must have been feeling.
• Connor Clifton’s pass on the Marchand goal shouldn’t be overlooked. Clifton said postgame that the play the Bruins were running was supposed to go through Torey Krug, but ended up on his stick instead. Happy accident, right?
• The fourth line deserves credit again tonight, as the grinders laid it all on the line when it counted most. Some of that line was responsible for excellent penalty killing at various points, and they were out there blocking shots in the last minute too. Joakim Nordstrom has had a random flash of offense at various points in every game of this series too. Maybe he has another big goal in him.
• The third line was kept off the scoresheet tonight, but Marcus Johansson stuck out to me as someone who had a good game. There were a few times where he picked the pocket of a defender in the Columbus zone, leading to a good scoring chance. He’s a smart player, and appears to know where to go in order to be in the right spot.
• The game-winning goal was finished by the big guns, but Brandon Carlo deserves credit for the initial play. He stifled a Panarin rush on his own, managing to slow him down, dislodge the puck, and get it moving the other way, all without taking a penalty. An impressive play on an elite player.
• I read a lot more comments tonight about the crowd sounding dead. I don’t know if NBC’s putting their microphones in weird spots or what, because it was extremely loud in the building tonight. Just my two cents.
• The Bruins dodged a major bullet with Charlie McAvoy appearing to be fine after that blocked shot. That play didn’t need to happen: Marchand had clean possession and all kinds of time and space, but he turned the puck over at the blue line instead. He caught a break when McAvoy made the block, and caught another break in that nothing on McAvoy is broken as a result.
• When asked about John Tortorella saying they’d be back here for Game 7, both Pastrnak and Marchand refused to bite.

Game 6 is Monday night! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!