Fans in their Bruins sweaters filtered into the TD Garden to see the last game in Boston for the season with the hope there would be one more in Chicago: a seventh game just like two years ago, when the Bruins rallied from a 3-2 deficit, then won in Vancouver for their first NHL championship since 1972.
Both teams were bolstered by the return of star forwards, Selke Trophy winner Toews of Chicago and Patrice Bergeron, who was a finalist for the award given to the top defensive forward in the league. Both returned after missing the end of Game 5, but only Toews showed up in the box score.
Bergeron said afterward that he had a broken rib, torn cartilage in muscles, and added to that a separated shoulder on Monday night.
”It’s the Stanley Cup Final. Everyone is banged up,” Bergeron said. ”It’s tough to put words to describe how we’re feeling right now. You work so hard just to get to this point and give yourself a chance to get the Cup. You feel like you’re right there and you have a chance to force a Game 7, and definitely it hurts.”
What had already been a physical series continued to take its toll, with Jaromir Jagr – the NHL’s active playoff scoring leader – and Andrew Shaw both going to the dressing room during the first period. Jagr’s injury was not known, but Shaw deflected a slap shot from Shawn Thornton off his own right cheek and crumpled to the ice, leaving behind a pool of blood when he skated off.
Both returned, but Jagr again disappeared from the Boston bench in the second. Crawford also forced a stoppage of play when his mask came off following David Krejci’s slap shot off his shoulder; the Chicago goalie appeared to need a little time to recover, but he stayed in the game.
”The whole playoffs. It wasn’t just Chicago. It’s going to be physical, grinding the whole playoffs,” said Bruins captain Zdeno Chara, the 2009 Norris Trophy winner who was on the ice for 10 of the last 12 Chicago goals. ”I think that first game we played them we knew it would be a close series. We just had that feeling. It went all the way to triple overtime. It was physical. It was close. At times a very fast game, (but) it was very, very even.”