Canucks’ 3-2 victory over Bruins is suddenly special

From Vancouver, Canada

There was a time in Alexandre Burrows’ career when coaches didn’t trust him in close games and he’d watch other players thrive under pressure and become go-to guys.

The feisty Vancouver winger became that guy Saturday. He scored the first goal, set up the second and scored 11 seconds into overtime on a remarkable wraparound to lead the Canucks to a 3-2 victory and a two-games-to-none lead over the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals.

“The first few years of my career I was on the bench for those kinds of goals,” he said. “You’ve got to work hard to be on the ice in those moments.”

If the NHL’s justice system had any logic behind it, he might not have been on the ice at all to score the second-fastest overtime goal in Stanley Cup finals history, two seconds later than Brian Skrudland’s goal for Montreal against Calgary on May 18, 1986.

Burrows had chomped down on the finger of Boston center Patrice Bergeron in Game 1, a suspendable offense, but escaped punishment because NHL executives said they couldn’t find conclusive proof he had intentionally gnawed on Bergeron’s digit. They might have been the only ones who thought so, but Burrows remained in the lineup for better or for worse.

Burrows certainly gave the Canucks his better side Saturday, delighting a sellout crowd at Rogers Arena that was ready to party and got an additional emotional lift from the return of center Manny Malhotra from a devastating eye injury.

“He’s an emotional guy and he plays on the edge and that’s what happens,” defenseman Sami Salo said of Burrows’ opposing angel/devil tendencies.

“Those are always great players who play on the edge and he’s been that kind of player for us every year that he’s been here, scoring a lot of big goals for us.”

It was clearly a blow to the Bruins, who had rallied to build a 2-1 lead in the second period and were hoping for a split before returning to Boston for Game 3 on Monday.

“It just hurts to lose like that,” Bergeron said. “It’s a loss no matter what time in overtime it is. We have to be better in our zone there, especially off a draw like that.”

Burrows scored the game’s first goal on a seemingly harmless shot that dribbled past Tim Thomas at 12:12 of the first period, during a Vancouver power play.

The Bruins pulled even nine minutes into the second period, when Vancouver native Milan Lucic converted the rebound of a shot by defenseman Johnny Boychuk, and took the lead at 11:35 on their first power-play goal of the finals when Mark Recchi redirected a shot by Zdeno Chara past Roberto Luongo.

“I thought we didn’t have our work boots on,” Canucks Coach Alain Vigneault said.

But Burrows said he and his teammates were calm during the second intermission.

“We’ve been in this situation before,” he said. “We were a pretty good team in the third period all year.”

And they were again. Daniel Sedin made it 2-2 at 9:37 of the third period off a superb turnaround pass in the slot from Burrows.

Then, barely after the opening faceoff in overtime, Burrows took a pass from Sedin, fended off Chara and tucked the puck inside the post while Thomas was out of position.

“I didn’t think he was going to be able to score from where he was. I don’t know how it bounced or what happened, but it was real nice to see it go in,” Henrik Sedin said.

The nicest part for Burrows was to be scoring it, not watching someone else become the hero.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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