Torres' goal lifts Vancouver, 1-0
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Raffi Torres checks in with injured Vancouver center Manny Malhotra after every period in the playoffs, soliciting advice and encouragement from his longtime friend and teammate.
“Just a couple words of wisdom from a guy that knows what he’s talking about,” Torres said of his pep talks with Malhotra, who’s fighting to return from a career-threatening eye injury.
Whatever Malhotra said to Torres before the third period of the Stanley Cup finals opener Wednesday night, the journeyman wing turned it into a dramatic game-winning goal for the Canucks — even if Torres waited until the very last minute to do it.
Torres scored on an exceptional pass from Jannik Hansen with 18.5 seconds to play, ending a scoreless standoff between star goalies Roberto Luongo and Tim Thomas and sending Vancouver to a 1-0 victory over the Boston Bruins.
“It seems like it was a goaltender’s duel right to the end,” Hansen said. “It’s a matter of sticking with it, no matter how many saves it seems he came up with.”
Game 2 is Saturday night in Vancouver.
Until Hansen wired his pass to Torres, the NHL’s highest-scoring team was profoundly frustrated in its first finals appearance in 17 years. NHL scoring champion Daniel Sedin took eight shots without a goal against Boston’s formidable defense, and Vancouver’s vaunted power play failed in six tries.
The opener was a chippy game filled with hard hits, after-the-whistle scrums and one bizarre moment in which Vancouver’s Alex Burrows apparently bit the gloved right index finger of Boston’s Patrice Bergeron.
But after 59Z\x scoreless minutes, Vancouver’s third-line wings only needed an instant to connect. Ryan Kesler made a heady play along the boards and eventually got the puck to Hansen, who hit Torres in stride while streaking to the net.
“I heard Raffi yelling,” Hansen said with a grin. “It was easy to hear him.”
Torres put a slick redirection past Thomas to score the latest go-ahead goal in a finals game since 1992, when Mario Lemieux connected with 13 seconds left in Pittsburgh’s series-opening win over Chicago.
Torres is the only Vancouver player with previous finals experience after participating in Edmonton’s 2006 run, but he was a healthy scratch in the playoffs for Buffalo last spring. He was out of a job for about seven weeks last summer.
