There were several outstanding goaltending performances in Thursday night's Stanley Cup playoff action. Unfortunately for the Boston Bruins, Tuukka Rask's was not one of them.
2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs nightly GIF recap: Rangers survive, Red Wings and Kings take command
Tuukka Rask picked the wrong time to rest his tired bones.
The Bruins had a 2-0 lead and a chance to close out their series with the reeling New York Rangers, but Rask let them back in the game, and the Rangers won 4-3 in overtime.
In Detroit, Henrik Zetterberg frustrated Jonathan Toews as Jimmy Howard shut out the Chicago Blackhawks 2-0, giving Detroit a 3-1 series lead
And in Los Angeles, a goalie battle broke in the Kings' favor when they finally solved San Jose Sharks goalie Antti Niemi and won 3-0 to take a 3-2 series lead.
But you don’t care about all that. You just need to see the GIFs:
Carl Hagelin enjoyed the fruits of Rask's sudden need to sit down and take a rest:
But the Bruins would answer with a more conventional goal from Torey Krug:
Mistakes kept costing the Bruins, though, and next time it was Zdeno Chara with the screw-up:
The Bruins gave up 2-0 and a 3-2 leads in the game, and the Rangers won it in overtime to avoid the sweep:
Over in Detroit, the Red Wings and Blackhawks started off by trading chances on the rush. Bryan Bickell didn't like Henrik Zetterberg zipping around the Hawks defense for a scoring chance, so he sat him down.
Or maybe Bickell was upset with Zetterberg blanketing Hawks captain Jonathan Toews all night. Zetterberg got under Toews’ skin, and the Chicago leader took three consecutive penalties in a 5:34 span of the second period.
On the second one, Toews got Justin Abdelkader to high stick himself:
Naturally the Wings scored on that one, Jakub Kindl ringing it off the inside of the post:
The Wings kept sticking to Toews, throwing extra bodies on him at every opportunity:
Meanwhile, Jimmy Howard shut the door to preserve the win and earn a shutout:
In Los Angeles, Anze Kopitar worked hard to break his slump, but he was robbed here by Antti Niemi:
But Jonathan Quick matched Niemi save-for-save, robbing Patrick Marleau here:
Jason Demers did a dumb thing, launching himself into Robyn Regehr for a boarding penalty:
The Kings didn’t score on that power play, but they broke the ice soon afterward. First Niemi made another save (and for the second time, the Kings spotlight operator turned on the goal light prematurely):
But when the hockey gods decide your slump is over, they make no doubt about it. Kopitar scored his first goal of the series and just his second of the playoffs when an easy tap-in landed on his stick:
Slava Voynov has not had trouble scoring in these playoffs. The defenseman's fourth goal came through a screen and had eyes:
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