For Hawks, no celebrating this time
For the second time in two games, the Blackhawks and the Bruins needed extra time to decide a winner.
This time it wasn't the Hawks doing the celebrating.
Daniel Paille's goal at 13:48 of the first overtime gave Boston a 2-1 win and evened the Stanley Cup Final at 1-1 heading into Game 3 on Monday at TD Garden.
Brandon Bollig, who was playing for the second straight game in the Final for the benched Viktor Stalberg, couldn't handle a rim-around off the boards, and the Bruins pounced on the opportunity.
Tyler Seguin fed Paille between the circles, and he beat Corey Crawford to the glove side off the post.
Paille also assisted on Chris Kelly's goal at 14:58 of the second period that made it 1-1.
Bruins coach Claude Julien put fourth liners Kelly and Paille with third liner Seguin together after the first period, and it paid off with magic.
“We didn't have much going, and I thought that line would give us something, and they responded well,” Julien said. “They got both goals tonight. It was a hunch from the coach.
“You look at last game when they won and their heroes were guys from the third and fourth lines. That's what you get in the playoffs. Top lines are playing head to head and against top defensemen, so it's not always that easy to score.”
The Hawks regretted coming out of the first period ahead only 1-0 despite dominating the play.
“The first period was a period that we were really disappointed with,” Julien said. “From the second period on we seemed to slowly get better and better. The further the games went on, the better we got. Obviously, when you come into this building you're hoping for a split.
“That first period was a hard period to coach and to watch. They were skating and we weren't.”
The Hawks attempted 30 shots to Boston's 5 with 19 getting to the net.
The Hawks got the only goal of the period at 11:22 when Patrick Sharp beat Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask from the far right side during a scramble.
Unfortunately for the Hawks, that was all they could put behind Rask, and it came back to bite them in the end.
“Maybe we left something out there,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Had everything right in that first part of the game. Had some good looks, as well. Did what we were looking to do. But, hey, it's a long game. We've got to be better than that.
“I thought we slowed ourselves down. I don't think we got the puck behind them. I think we were in front of them too much and that played into their hands. In the second period, I thought we lost the pace of the game on that end of the rink.
“We had the perfect start to the game and then we stopped doing what made us successful. We stood around and they countered.”
The Hawks let the Bruins hang around until late in the second period when a turnover by defenseman Nick Leddy led to Kelly's tying goal at 14:58.
“If somebody would watch the first period, I would've said, 'Oh, give them the Cup right now,'” Jaromir Jagr said. “If somebody watched the overtime, they say, 'Oh, it's gonna be a long series.'”
“I don't think we played well enough to win that one in overtime at all,” said Hawks defenseman Brent Seabrook. “We came out in the second firing and we have to do a better job of keeping the momentum throughout the game.”
The Hawks' power play was a problem once again, going 0-for-3 and looking disorganized and unsure of itself.
Quenneville thought the power play had a few good looks.
“Two good looks on the first one,” Quenneville said. “I thought that was our two nice setups. We lost a little momentum on the next one or two.”
The outcome might have been different had Jonathan Toews' goal late in the first period been allowed to stand. Replays showed the puck clearly over the goal line, but the referee told Quenneville he was in the process of blowing the whistle.
“He said his intention was to blow the whistle,” Quenneville said.
“I thought the whistle was a little quick, but that's the way it is,” Toews said.
Quenneville had no problems with the play by Bollig in overtime.
“They got the one shift, around the wall, we didn't get there in time, bang, bang,” Quenneville said.
“No one said it was going to be easy,” Toews said. “No one said everything was going to go our way. Some moments, you feel pretty darn good, like when we won Game 1 and triple overtime, and tonight it doesn't feel good.
“You've got to find a way to get over it to move to the next time you're going to be on the ice, and not let it affect you.”
tsassone@dailyherald.com