Talking Points: Boston Bruins Once Again Rule Canes At Home

BOSTON – Here are the Talking Points from the Boston Bruins 5-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 6 at TD Garden on Thursday night to force a decisive Game 7 this weekend.

GOLD STAR: Charlie Coyle has been pretty good in this first round series even as his linemates have changed around him on the third line, but the third line center became a legitimate factor in the Bruins win in Game 6. The Weymouth factored in each of the first two goals in the second period that allowed the B’s to get first blood for the first time in any of the games in this series, and his power play goal in the second really kicked up the energy level at TD Garden. It was a Pastrnak point shot that was blocked and the puck ricocheted right to Coyle in the bumper area where he banged it into the vacant net for the first truly good bounce Boston has enjoyed in this series to date. Coyle finished with a goal and two points in 15:46 of ice time along with four shot attempts, four hits, a blocked shot and 11-of-19 face-off wins in an active evening.

BLACK EYE: Sebastian Aho is normally a Bruins killer, but he was awfully quiet after getting smoked by Charlie McAvoy on an attempted 2-on-1 rush during the first period. McAvoy clobbered Aho as the puck traveled by both players and then attempted to grab at his helmet while looking for a penalty kill before getting up and getting off the ice.

Charlie McAvoy doesn’t want the playoffs to end tonight for the Bruins pic.twitter.com/34x8CkewsR

— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) May 12, 2022

Aho finished with zero shots on net, a minus-2 and a couple giveaways while being a complete non-factor during the game for Carolina. He wasn’t the only Hurricane that had less than their best on Thursday night, but he was absolutely the most noticeable.

TURNING POINT: The Boston Bruins could have shriveled up in the third period when Andrei Svechnikov scored a goal to make it a 2-1 game, and it looked like the Hurricanes were going to make their attempt to end things in Game 6. But the Bruins responded with a strong shift after the goal and then extended the lead just a couple of minutes later when Charlie McAvoy hit Erik Haula in the slot for his first goal of the playoff series. It was the kind of balanced scoring that the B’s have been looking for in these playoffs and exactly what Bruce Cassidy hoped would happen when he put this season’s normal lines back together for Game 6.

HONORABLE MENTION: Derek Forbort hasn’t had too many games when he’s cracked the Talking Points this season, but it feels like he’s been pushing close to some kind of mention at least a few times during the postseason. Tonight, Forbort gets it with a third period seeing-eye wrist shot for a goal that whistled by a bunch of bodies as well as some pretty strong penalty killing in his 19:57 of ice time. Forbort spent nearly five minutes of the game killing penalties and finished with two shot attempts, three hits, three blocked shots and three takeaways while once again working well with Connor Clifton as a third pairing for the Black and Gold.

BY THE NUMBERS: 14-6 – the aggregate score of the three games at TD Garden where the Boston Bruins had their way with the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes have outscored the Bruins 15-4 in the three games in Carolina during the first round “homer” series, as Bruce Cassidy calls it.

QUOTE TO NOTE: “This is what you play for. Guys should be excited. Game 7, Stanley Cup Playoffs. We’d rather be at home, I’m not going to lie to you. But we’d play them on Mars if we had to. Right now, we just want to get after it.” –Bruce Cassidy on how he feels about playing a Game 7 in a PNC Arena setting that’s been deadly for the Boston Bruins thus far this season.