Bruins vs Canadiens game 5 summary

Boston Bruins right wing Nathan Norton (18) beats Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price for the game-winning goal during the second overtime period in Game 5 of a first-round NHL Stanley Cup hockey playoff series in Boston, Saturday, April 23, 2011. The Bruins won 3-2, taking a 3-2 lead in the series. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

What a game! It took two overtimes but the Bruins won Game 5 with Nathan Horton scoring the game winner in the second overtime to give the Bruins a 3-2 series lead. The game was mainly a goalie battle as no scoring happened until the third period. Brad Marchand scored his 1st goal to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead. Later, Halpern for Montreal would tie the game as the Bruins coughed up the puck behind their net. Then as I said above, in the second overtime, Horton scored to win the game 2-1. One thing to remember, before the Horton goal, Tim Thomas came up huge robbing Brian Gionta of a sure goal. This was definitely Thomas' best game of the playoffs so far.

Tim Thomas made 44 saves on 45 shots. Thomas is now 3-2 with a 2.19 GAA and a .927 save percentage in the playoffs.

The Bruins led the game in shots 44-39 and hits 37-33. Both teams won 43 faceoffs. The Bruins power play looked bad going 0 for 3.

Game highlights video

Notes from the game
Patrice Bergeron had another really good game. He had 1 assist, was a +1 with 4 shots, 3 blocked shots, and had 6 hits in 28:18 of ice time. He went 23-12 in the faceoff circle.

Dennis Seidenberg led the Bruins in ice time with 38:15. Zdeno Chara was next with 37:06.

Milan Lucic looked better in this game, although not much of a physical presence with just 1 hit. But he had an assist, was +1, and had 8 shots.

Chris Kelly and Tomas Kaberle were the only Bruins without a shot on net.

Michael Ryder had another really good game for the Bruins. He even made a big save on a Plekanec shot while in the crease.

In the second period, while the Marchand-Plekanec scrum was going on, Mark Recchi was going at it with Hal Gill. I don't know if anyone else remembers this but back when Gill was still with the Bruins and Recchi was with the Flyers they had a shoving match where Recchi pushed the much bigger Gill around. It looked similar to today's shoving match. They do have a history.

At one point in the first overtime, the Versus broadcasters called out Kaberle for not hustling back in overtime as Montreal had an odd man rush. Rightfully so. I haven't been impressed with Kaberle since we got him.

Onto the next one
Game 6 is on Tuesday in Montreal at 7pm ET. The Bruins lead the series 3-2 now and have a chance to close out the series in Montreal.