BOSTON -- Alex Burrows is certain to receive a greeting Zdeno Chara and a select few others could appreciate when he shows up tomorrow night in TD Garden for Game Three. He has become the top villain for the Canucks so far in the Stanley Cup finals.
Burrows, of course, was the guy who bit Bruins center Patrice Bergeron in Game One and avoided suspension in Game Two. Sure enough, he came back to bite the Bruins with a wraparound goal 11 seconds into overtime and finished the night with two goals and one assist. You could practically hear Bruins fans moaning when they realized it was Burrows who scored the winner Saturday.
As you can imagine, they love him in Vancouver for all the right reasons. He was an undrafted free agent who spent three seasons in the ECHL. He has averaged 29 goals and 116 penalty minutes over the past three seasons and is a key figure on the top line with the Sedin twins.
The Canucks aren't expected to arrive in Boston until this evening. The Bruins traveled across the continent last night and arrived early this morning.
All the attention on Burrows has taken away from the fact that the Canucks were the better team in each of the first two games and deserved to win. The Bruins wouldn't have reached the finals if not for Tim Thomas, who has allowed four goals in the two games and suffered two losses.
Boston has scored only twice in the series, with both goals coming 2:35 apart in the second period to take the lead. The Bruins were outshot 11-5 in the third period alone and had just six shots on net after Mark Recchi gave them the lead with 8:25 remaining in the second period.
--- Bucky Gleason
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