Bruins’ play was a tight fit

In the first period of Game 3 Thursday night, the two Lightning players the Bruins least wanted to see with a scoring opportunity — Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier — broke out for a two-on-one rush.

At the same time, St. Louis and Lecavalier spotted the one Bruin they didn’t want to stare down during the odd-man chance: Zdeno Chara.

“I noticed those two guys were coming at me,’’ Chara said. “At that time, you try and be in the right position and have your stick in the right place.’’

St. Louis, breaking down the left wing, tried to hit Lecavalier with a dish to set up a one-timer for his centerman. But with a quick flick of his 65-inch Easton, Chara busted up the play to snuff out what would be one of the Lightning’s best scoring chances of the night.

“I’m glad I had the stick where I had it,’’ Chara said. “Those guys are pretty good. If you give them too many of those outnumbered situations, they’re going to make some plays. You’ve got to be careful not to give them too much of those.’’

The early sequence in the Bruins’ 2-0 win was hard to overlook for several reasons. First, it was a textbook read-and-react play by the Norris Trophy candidate. Second, had Chara not made the play, Lecavalier would have launched a Grade-A laser to possibly tie the game at 1.

“[Chara] covers a little bit more area than most guys,’’ Adam McQuaid said with a smile. “He made a great read. Great job. Chances like that can be momentum-changers in games. They can be the difference. It was a great play by him.’’

In hindsight, the rush was most memorable because it was rarer than beef tartare. In Games 1 and 2, when the Lightning ripped up the Bruins for five goals on each night, the Tam pa forwards pulled away for rush after rush.

In Game 3, with the Bruins going on lockdown, the dangerous Lightning attackers had little room to breathe in the offensive zone.

“We all did a good job as a group as far as not giving them outnumbered situations, making sure we didn’t get caught down low,’’ said Bruins coach Claude Julien. “I thought our guys reacted well. By not giving those outnumbered situations, we’re also able to have a real effective forecheck going on. I really like the way our guys were focusing and how they read off each other.’’

Neither Julien nor Tampa Bay counterpart Guy Boucher liked the way their clubs performed defensively in Games 1 and 2. In the Bruins’ 5-2 loss in Game 1, defensive mistakes led to three goals in 85 seconds. A stickless Dennis Seidenberg kicked a rebound to Sean Bergenheim’s blade. A rotten forecheck and soft netminding by Tim Thomas allowed Brett Clark to dangle through three zones and score on a sharp-angle backhander. Seidenberg’s ill-advised decision to regroup and throw a hinge pass to Tomas Kaberle led to a cough-up by the ex-Leaf and an easy tap-in for Teddy Purcell.

Boucher noted that in their 6-5 loss Tuesday, the Lightning racked up more scoring chances in one game than they had all season. All those looks meant squat after Dwayne Roloson was chased following 40 minutes of run-and-gun action.

In Game 3, the Bruins rolled out a near-perfect defensive performance. Thomas stopped all 31 shots, but he gave proper credit to his teammates for limiting Tampa’s sniffs. Leading the charge was Chara, who played his best game of the series. In 28:27 of ice time, Chara squared off mostly against Tampa’s newly formed No. 1 line of Purcell, Lecavalier, and St. Louis. Seidenberg, Chara’s right-hand man, helped neutralize Tampa’s top-line attack.

It was the first time this series that Boucher paired Lecavalier and St. Louis. In the first two games, Steven Stamkos had centered St. Louis and Ryan Malone. By putting Lecavalier and St. Louis together, it made Julien’s job of matching Chara against the pair a little easier.

But that also required Boston’s second defensive pairing of Andrew Ference and Johnny Boychuk to be thorough against Tampa’s second line of Stamkos between Malone and Simon Gagne. Stamkos had four shots. Malone landed two. Gagne, a Bruins killer as a Flyer last year, was ghost-like in recording just a single shot.

Even Kaberle, one of Game 1’s goats, looked like a defense-first defenseman. Kaberle tightened up in Game 2. He was even better in Game 3, blocking a team-high three shots. Kaberle played only 12:41, of which 3:16 was on the power play. But by simplifying his approach, Kaberle made the most of his even-strength workload.

“I think he’s relaxed a little bit, which has given him some confidence in his game,’’ Julien said. “I think the last two games, he’s been a better player. He’s passing. He’s more poised. He’s a little bit more aggressive. And he’s not sitting on his heels. And I think that’s made a big difference in his game. We say it almost every day when we talk about players: It’s about confidence. That word confidence plays big.’’

It was no small bonus that Patrice Bergeron returned for Game 3 and played his usual two-way game. Bergeron won 18 of 28 faceoffs, leading the charge in the Bruins’ 57 percent success rate on the draw. When you have the puck, you’re on the attack, not on defense. For Game 4 today, the Bruins would like little to change.

Goal of Bruins is to bottle up the Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning resemble the Montreal Canadiens in some ways, but they are definitely a notch above the Bruins’ archrival.

Up front, they are loaded with talent in Vincent Lecavalier, Steven Stamkos, and leading scorer Martin St. Louis. When the Eastern Conference finals begin Saturday night at TD Garden, the Bruins must find a way to clamp down on their opponent’s top offensive threats.

“With every skill player, you’ve got to take time and space away and just try to be hard on them, don’t make it easy,’’ said Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg.

“Be hard in battles, try to win those puck battles along the boards, because that’s where they create stuff and get their chances from.’’

It actually might help the Bruins to have played the Habs in the opening round because it gave them seven games of experience negotiating the briar patch that was the neutral zone.

“The first round was a really hard challenge,’’ said Seidenberg. “The second round, we seemed to jell a little bit more and just play better hockey. Now, the third round, the anticipation is bigger, obviously, and everybody is getting ready and we’re looking forward to getting the next one started.’’

The biggest lesson they learned was to not force anything.

“You never want to force plays, and we did that the first couple of games, especially against [Montreal],’’ said Seidenberg. “We’ve just got to choose our spots where we want to be aggressive, where we want to go right back at them or when we want to just regroup and come with speed. It’s a mental game.’’

Seidenberg said players such as Lecavalier, who has 12 points in 11 playoff games, need to be respected.

“He’s obviously very skilled, he’s a former 50-goal scorer,’’ said Seidenberg. “He’s very solid on the puck, he’s strong on the puck. He’s a big body and he protects the puck well along the boards and just creates plays off of that.

“I’d definitely say top 10 [in the league]. All those guys are in the upper [tier] of forwards. So it will be another challenge.’’

Seidenberg said St. Louis, who is Tampa Bay’s top scorer with 13 postseason points, poses a different kind of threat.

“His work ethic is unbelievable,’’ said Seidenberg. “He works like crazy. He’s small and has a low center of gravity. He’s really shifty and smart and he sees the ice really well.’’

As for Stamkos, Seidenberg said, if you follow the puck, it usually finds him.

“He knows how to shoot the puck and he knows where to be,’’ said Seidenberg.

Because of the long break, Game 1 might need some time to take shape.

“Both teams are definitely rested,’’ said Seidenberg. “It’s tough to say if it’s going to be a waiting game or if it’s going to be an up-and-down game.

“We’re trying to play our game and we’ll just have to wait and see what they’re going to come with. They’ve stuck with their system and they’re very patient and we just have to play our game against their system.’’

Much has been made of the Lightning’s 1-3-1 neutral zone scheme, but Bruins coach Claude Julien didn’t sound overly concerned.

“I don’t think you want to certainly put your whole game plan around that,’’ said Julien. “The bottom line is, you’ve got to find a way to get through that. And at the same time, what they’re very good at is when they force you to move the pucks in deep, they’ve got a defenseman there who just grabs it and shoots it right back out.

“So it’s about us getting through that and making sure we give ourselves an opportunity to still have the puck in the offensive zone.

“Our game plan is not going to change a lot. There are going to be some small adjustments here and there, but our game plan should be good enough and we should be confident with it that we know it can continue to bring us success.

“As far as their neutral zone [scheme], it’s very similar to Montreal’s and we were able to get through that one.’’

Julien acknowledged that the Lightning have a more potent offense than anything the Bruins have faced so far.

“Every team you play has got some players you have to keep a close eye on,’’ said Julien. “[Claude] Giroux and [Daniel] Briere in the Philly series, the [Mike] Cammalleris and [Brian] Giontas [in Montreal].

“You’ve just got to make sure you know who they are and you’ve got to make sure you know when they’re on the ice and what they’re capable of doing and hopefully they’re thinking the same way about our players.

“We’ve handled other teams pretty well and we’re going to have to handle those guys just as well because we plan on having success.’’