Boston, once again, came out with a solid start over the games first few minutes, but for the fifth consecutive game surrendered the opening goal when Jaccob Slavin scored from the left of Jeremy Swayman at 6:11 of the first period. Tony DeAngelo doubled Carolina's lead with a power-play marker with 7:43 remaining in the opening frame and the Bruins trailed by two after 20 minutes, a deficit that grew to four early in the third period following two goals from Seth Jarvis.
"Well, we're facing elimination," said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy. "That's what makes me the most concerned. [Patrice] Bergeron's line had a number of good chances [early on]. Again, three times in this building and we were the better team over the first six, seven, whatever it was minutes and then they had one chance and it found its way in and that sort of gives them a lot of juice. So that part was good, but not enough.
"I don't know if up and down the lineup - we're going to need a little bit more, whether it's working hard to keep the puck out of the net, which we did up in Boston, a lot better blocking shots, finishing checks so guys can't join the rush, sorting out coverages quick. So, the first goal shouldn't happen if we're on our toes defensively too. So that concerns me. We need to get some guys going…but it's also the time of the year where they that inner drive comes through and that's what we're looking at."
The home team has now won all five games in the series with the Hurricanes taking command at PNC Arena by outscoring Boston, 15-4, in the three contests in Raleigh. Carolina has not yet trailed on home ice in the series.
"It's a tough building to play in," said Brad Marchand. "They feed a lot on the emotion that they get from the crowd. They enjoy playing here, you can see it the way they are with the fans and everything. You can see that they enjoy playing in this building, they feed off of that energy and they have pretty good matchups at home. That all plays apart.
"They're a good team. You can't discredit them. They play extremely hard, they play fast. We knew it was gonna be a tough series. They're a great team. They're competing hard out there, got to give them some credit."
On the flip side, the Bruins have outscored the Hurricanes, 9-4, at TD Garden in their two victories, a trend the Black & Gold hopes to continue Thursday night.
"Well, so far it's been a homer series, so we'd like to continue that for now," said Cassidy. "The Garden has been good to us in this series, so I think our guys will be obviously motivated. They need to be motivated to play because if we don't play well, it's over. So, there's that, first of all. Second of all, like I said, we played very well there in Games 3 and 4, so that'll be good for us, just like it was good to them."