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Lightning visit Bruins, aim for 2-0 lead in East finals

May 17, 2011 - 2:49 PM (Sports Network) - The Boston Bruins will try to avoid falling behind 2-0 in the Eastern Conference finals when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning in tonight's Game 2 encounter at TD Garden.

The fifth-seeded Lightning grabbed the early lead in this best-of-seven series by taking Saturday's Game 1 in Boston by a 5-2 score. It was the eighth straight win for Tampa Bay, which hasn't lost since it fell behind three- games-to-one against Pittsburgh in the opening round.

Both the Lightning and Bruins are coming off sweeps in the last round. Tampa Bay won four straight against top-seeded Washington to earn its second-ever trip to the conference finals, while Boston disposed of Philadelphia in four games to reach this stage for the first time since 1992.

The short conference semifinal series gave both Tampa and the third-seeded Bruins plenty of time to rest before Game 1 of this round. Tampa Bay had nine days off after sweeping Washington and Boston rested for seven days after eliminating Philadelphia.

The certainly Bruins showed signs of rust in the opener on Saturday, but head coach Claude Julien is expecting his club to rebound in Game 2.

"Let's not over analyze this situation," Julien said. "You can do better as a team and not worry so much about the other team."

The Lightning, meanwhile, hope to duplicate their Game 1 performance this evening. The Bolts scored three goals in an 85-second span in the first period and Dwayne Roloson made 31 saves to make that early lead stand up for the 5-2 win.

Tampa is now 8-0 this postseason when scoring first, but the Lightning had plenty of help in tallying the first three goals on Saturday. An errant kick in front of the crease, lackadaisical defense and a turnover behind the net led to the goals by Sean Bergenheim, Brett Clark and Teddy Purcell.

"A couple lucky ones," said Roloson.

Bruins rookie Tyler Seguin scored to make it a 3-1 game by the end of the first, but Boston would never get closer than that. Johnny Boychuk had a late goal for Boston, while Tim Thomas made 29 saves in defeat.

"I think we could have had a better effort," said Julien. "We're going to need to be better."

The 19-year-old Seguin, who was the second overall pick in last summer's draft, skated in his first NHL playoff game on Saturday and he could be in the lineup again tonight if concussed forward Patrice Bergeron is unable to go in Game 2.

Bergeron sustained a mild concussion in the final game of the Philadelphia series and his status for tonight is uncertain. The valuable two-way forward skated in practice Monday with his team and is expected to be a game-time decision tonight.

Tampa, which also received goals from Marc-Andre Bergeron and Simon Gagne in Game 1, would love to grab a 2-0 lead tonight before the series shifts to Florida for Games 3 and 4. The Lightning, who will host the next meeting in this series on Thursday, are 6-1 as the visiting team in the 2011 playoffs and were 21-14-6 as the road club during the season.

Boston is 4-3 on home ice in this year's playoffs after going 22-13-6 at TD Garden during the regular season.

The Bruins have lost their previous two trips to the conference finals since the club last made an appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1990. Tampa wound up winning the franchise's only Stanley Cup title in 2004, when it made its only other trip to the conference finals.

Although Tampa and Boston have never met in the postseason, the Bruins did take three out of four from Tampa Bay this year and outscored the Lightning by a combined 15-8 margin in the regular-season series.