Sloppy opening act draws poor reviews

They couldn't chip pucks out of their zone. They ran around in front of Tim Thomas, which they hadn't done all season. They looked like they were skating in oatmeal. They gave away Grade-A scoring chances at nearly every turn.

For all that, the Bruins somehow escaped with only a one-goal deficit. And they could have taken a lead into the second period. David Krejci hit a post. P.J. Axelsson had a shorthanded breakaway. Zdeno Chara hit the right post.

"P.J. had the breakaway. We hit two posts. It could have been a different result after the first," Chara said.

But Axelsson's penalty-killing presence was required because of an ill-advised penalty by Krejci. At 3:17, Thomas covered a puck and the whistle blew. Center Jussi Jokinen slammed on the brakes and stopped short of Thomas. For some reason, Krejci gave Jokinen a jolt and dumped the center to the ice, drawing an unnecessary roughing penalty to put the Hurricanes on the power play.

"You've got to be smart," said coach Claude Julien. "And penalties like the first one we took that cost us a goal are not the kind of penalties you want to see in this series."

At 4:54, with traffic in front, center Eric Staal put a shot on goal that Thomas couldn't handle, giving the Hurricanes a 1-0 advantage.

And it could have been worse.

The Hurricanes turned nearly every entry into the offensive zone into a scoring chance. There was Staal blowing Chuck Kobasew's doors off to set up Ray Whitney in the slot. There was Whitney on another shift, putting three straight shots on goal before the Bruins gained control. There was Thomas having to make one of his best saves, pulling out the acrobatics to foil center Matt Cullen.

"They get going a bit and the crowd seems to get into it," said Marc Savard. "We seem to lose composure a bit. We're firing pucks away when we normally wouldn't. We've got to learn from that, especially if we want to come back here again.

"It's a learning curve. But we've got to learn quicker than we did."

"He's strong along the boards and he can create some things offensively," said Julien. "You saw him do that tonight. It was a decision we made. It had nothing to do with Shawn, except that we had to make some room for Bitzy. We thought being in Shawn's spot would maybe give that line more offense."

Bitz, skating alongside Axelsson and Stephane Yelle, helped the Bruins gain traction late in the first period. The fourth line put together the team's first extended cycle in the closing minutes.

Because of Bitz's effectiveness (12 shifts, 9:41 of ice time), Julien gave the right wing some shifts in Blake Wheeler's spot with Krejci and Michael Ryder. Wheeler, on the other hand, continued to struggle. Wheeler had zero shots in 12:32 of ice time.

"It's the playoffs," Hnidy said before the game. "You've got to do whatever it takes. You kind of go through the same motions as if you were playing. You do whatever it takes to make sure you're ready."

Hnidy skated 20 shifts for 12:06 of ice time. He was on the ice for Staal's first-period power-play goal and for Sergei Samsonov's third-period strike.