EASTERN SEMI-FINALS
GAME SUMMARIES
GAME 1:
#4 TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS vs #8 PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
Pittsburgh leads 1-0
Next Game: Sunday May 9th, 1999 7pm at Toronto
Dan Kesa was a surprise playoff hero for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Kesa, who scored only two goals during the regular season and hadn't even managed a shot during the playoffs, scored the winning goal as the Penguins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-0 Friday night.
Jaromir Jagr played at only half speed because of a strained groin and Pittsburgh's offense managed only 19 shots. Yet, the Penguins emerged with a victory in their second-round playoff opener over the favored Maple Leafs.
Credit Pittsburgh's defense and a superior power play with the win. Goaltender Tom Barrasso got the shutout by making 20 saves -- few of them difficult ones.
"We know they're a great team offensively, so we have to stop them through the neutral zone and not let them get any speed up," Kesa said. "We did that pretty well."
Pittsburgh was 1-for-3 on the power play, with Kesa scoring in the first period, and Toronto was 0-for-4.
"The puck came to me in the slot and I saw (Curtis) Joseph was down, so I just teed it up and went high," said Kesa, a 27-year-old forward from Vancouver. "I got two goals all year and to get one on the power play on Hockey Night in Canada is a pretty good feeling."
Joseph had been bumped by teammate Mats Sundin and was falling when Kesa's slap shot went through his legs.
"If I had a hockey pool, I probably wouldn't have picked him," teammate Bobby Dollas said of Kesa.
German Titov added an empty-net goal with 37 seconds left.
"We really put our noses to the grindstone and we came out with the victory," Dollas said.
Game 2 in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinal is Sunday night.
"We played very good defense and Tommy played an excellent game," said Jagr. "I thought there would be more offense, especially the first game, but I'm glad we won.
"That's the way we played against New Jersey (in the first round) and it worked for us, so we didn't want to change anything."
The Penguins would have been up by two or three goals at the end of the first period except for some superb saves by Joseph.
Barrasso's shutout was his first in the playoffs in three years and his sixth in 108 career playoff games.
"We both came out a little tentative," said Barrasso. "Besides the specialty team play, I don't think there was a whole lot of activity in most of the game quite frankly, but I'm sure that will change as the series goes on.
"Both teams are in positions they haven't been in a lot lately. I know most of our guys have little playoff experience. We played a close-checking game and that was mostly the story of the night."
The Penguins bottled up the neutral zone.
"We couldn't get anything going in the neutral zone," said Maple Leafs forward Steve Thomas. "We didn't play well, we didn't execute, we didn't create any scoring chances."
Sergei Berezin, who had three shots on Barrasso in the game, was the only consistently dangerous Maple Leaf.
"We looked like the slowest club in the league because we were standing out there," said Toronto coach Pat Quinn. "Good checking does that -- it gets you standing.
"We looked like an ad-lib team. We had no sense of team play as far as moving the puck. I'm not sure anybody but Berezin had a scoring opportunity on our team. That really says a lot about how we played ... or how they played. I expected good defense out of them. I expected us to handle it a bit better."
#6 BOSTON BRUINS vs #7 BUFFALO SABRES
Boston leads 1-0
Next game: Sunday May 9th, 1999 2pm at Boston
Boston coach Pat Burns knew his Bruins could beat Dominik Hasek even if the pregame hype made Buffalo's goalie seem invincible.
"I think he let some goals in this year. I don't think his average is 0.00," Burns said. "The guy has been scored on."
The Bruins did it three times Thursday night and added an empty-net goal by Dimitri Khristich, his second goal of the game and the playoffs, as Boston won the opener of their second-round playoff series against the Sabres, 4-2.
"I didn't think they had too many goal-scoring chances," said Hasek, whose 1.87 goals-against average was second in the league. "We were always one or two goals behind and it's tough to come back from a deficit like that."
Hasek won the NHL's last two most valuable player awards, led the Czech Republic to the Olympic gold medal last season, was tops in the league in save percentage and allowed just six goals in Buffalo's 4-0 sweep of Ottawa in the first round.
But Boston goalie Byron Dafoe had two shutouts in the Bruins' 4-2 first-round victory over Carolina and led the NHL with 10 shutouts.
Hasek has "a lot of pressure on him. If he doesn't have an unbelievable night, people question him," Dafoe said. "I don't mind getting second fiddle. That's fine."
More importantly, Boston scored the first goal against a strong defensive team, then withstood an aggressive Buffalo attack late in the game before Khristich scored into an empty net with 12 seconds to play.
"It's nice to get them behind right away," said Jason Allison, who gave Boston a 1-0 lead with his first goal of the playoffs on a power play at 13:59 of the first period. "We're a good team when we're ahead and, with Hasek there, it's tough if you fall behind."
Game 2 of the best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinal is scheduled for Sunday in Boston. The teams tied with 91 points in the regular season, but the Bruins got the sixth seed in the East because Boston had two more wins.
The Sabres, who lost in the Eastern finals last season, had gone eight days between games but that wasn't enough time for Miroslav Satan, who led them with 40 goals, to recover from an ankle injury as he missed the game.
"The first five or six minutes we played pretty well," said Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff, who didn't think his team showed much rust from the layoff. "Then we had a little lull, but in the second and third periods we were really skating."
The Bruins showed no shortage of intensity despite going 1-4 against Buffalo in the regular season.
Boston opened a 2-0 lead on goals by Allison in the first period and Khristich, who led the team with 29 regular-season goals, at 15:21 of the second period.
Alexei Zhitnik cut the lead to 2-1 on a power play at 18:19 of the period, but Boston restored the two-goal lead when Joe Thornton scored his second playoff goal at 19:46, just 16 seconds after Wayne Primeau was penalized for hooking.
Jason Woolley made it 3-2 when he collected a loose puck just in front of the left point, whirled and fired it past Dafoe at 9:37 of the third period.
"I came in the league with Dafoe. He continues to get better and better," Woolley said. "We were content with the way we played but I think we have more. I know we have more."
Boston got its third home playoff win in four games after entering the postseason with a 1-10 mark in its previous 11 home playoff games.
Allison, who had 23 regular-season goals, scored when he carried the puck past Richard Smehlik as he crossed the blue line on the right side. The five-footer hit Hasek's left arm and went in over his shoulder. It extended Allison's point streak to seven games, including an assist in each of the six games against Carolina.
"We got traffic. We got deflections," Allison said. "I don't think he (Hasek) let in a bad goal. We played well."
Khristich made it 2-0 and Allison made it possible as he skated behind the net and passed to Kyle McLaren to Hasek's left. McLaren then shot across the crease where Khristich poked the puck in.
Zhitnik then ended Dafoe's shutout streak at 134 minutes, 49 seconds with a power-play slap shot from inside the right circle that went just inside the right post.
Thornton scored when he tipped in a 50-foot shot by Ray Bourque. Boston scored on two of its four second-period shots but needed both goals as Woolley drew the Sabres within a goal of the lead before Khristich's empty-netter.