October 14, 1996
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Rick Tocchet's goal with 15 seconds left in overtime lifted the Boston Bruins to a 5-4 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday.
The win was the second straight win on a four-game road trip for the Bruins.
With time running out, Adam Oates won a faceoff in the right circle
and chipped a pass to Tocchet high in the slot. Tocchet snapped
the puck past an unscreened Kirk McLean for his third goal of the season.
"Oates was winning draws all night. With only 18 seconds left,
you're not going to get much except a shot at the net," Tocchet said. "He is really good on the draw. If he doesn't win it, he'll tie it up, and it dribbled out to me and I put it in."
Steve Heinze added a pair of goals and Jeff Odgers scored in his
third straight game for Boston, which picked up the win despite
being outshot, 43-19.
Bruins goalie Bill Ranford made 39 saves.
"When you give up 43 shots, he must have done his job, but it
was a team thing," Boston coach Steve Kasper said. "Certainly,
we need some improvement in our own end, but we have to be happy
to start this road trip with two wins. It's a big building block
for us."
McLean made just 14 saves for Vancouver, which has dropped three
of its last four games.
Boston opened the scoring 5:48 into the game when Heinze took a
pass from Ted Donato and beat McLean high to the glove side. The
shot was one of just two the Bruins had in the period.
into the second period to give the Bruins a two-goal edge. It
was his second two-goal game of the season and tied him with
Montreal's Brian Savage and Phoenix's Mike Gartner for the
league lead.
"Our line was moving the puck well and I think Stumpel has
really taken that next step offensively for us," Heinze said.
"If he moves the puck, (Donato) and I can get in in the boards
or drive it in the front of the net and that is what happened
tonight."
Vancouver battled back to tie it. Russ Courtnall redirected a
rebound of Jyrki Lumme's shot at 7:18 and Alexander Mogilny
scored just over five minutes later.
Courtnall scored his second of the game at 3:45 of the third
period, but Odgers scored less than three minutes later to knot
the score again.
"We battled back and went ahead and even came back and tied it,"
Courtnall said. "What do you expect me to say? Of course it's
a lousy way to lose."
Donato tallied his first goal of the season at 13:33, but Lumme
tied the score at 16:45 when he scored into an open net off a
pass from Mike Ridley that caught Ranford out of position.
"I'm not worried about this team scoring goals, but even though
we did not give up many shots, we gave up too many quality
chances," said Lumme, who finished the night with his first
three points of the season. "We did not press as much as we
should have and we got stuck in our trap all night.
"When we did
press, we set up shop in our zone, but we could not stop them in
the other end when we had to."
Jon's 3 stars:
1. Steve Heinze
2. Jyrki Lumme
3. Jozef Stumpel
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