Bruins Elimin……Oh wait, A Comeback for the Ages!

Kessel had you all fooled by his regular season play!

Another MASSIVE collapse by the Bruins.

Just a couple of the tweets I made with about six minutes left in the third period of Monday nights game seven between the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs. And of course, they were your thoughts as well!  Down three goals after 5:29 of the third period when Nazem Kadri deposited a Phil Kessel rebound by Tuukka Rask, it was time to turn out the lights, melt the ice, and figure out which players would be on the 2013-14 roster and if the Coach would be retained. The loss would sure mean major changes to the hockey club as we know it.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Boston Collapse. The wide-eyed playoff freshman from Toronto had a meltdown of their own. It started with a Nathan Horton goal with 11:42 left. Nice, but at the time, I called it ‘window dressing’, to try and make the score respectable. For the next nine minutes, the Bruins were pressing as they haven’t all game and for much of the past three games and still two goals short of tying the game. Meantime as they put pressure on, its the Leafs who seem to keep getting breakways and two on ones which thankfully Rask is shutting them down with regularity.

Two minutes left and Rask head to the bench as the Bruins dump and chase. The puck comes back to the Captain and Chara blast on net. Reimer saves and pokes the rebound to Milan Lucic – who in that last 10 minutes was the Lucic that we’ve been looking for all year – who promptly lifted a hard wrister over the prone goalie and now with 1:22 left, the Bruins are a goal away from tying it. Still improbable!

This will not happen. They are gonna lose game seven by one goal because of their “Jeckyll and Hyde” personality Claude Julien says they have. They are still teasing us by clawing back in it and really do not have much time to tie the game and send it to overtime.

Toronto is gonna stiffen their backbone and say  ‘Screw you Bruins. You are not gonna take this away from us.  Not now. Not this close.’

But the Leafs spine was weakening even more as the puck came back to Patrice Bergeron at the blue line and with the six foot eight inch Chara screening, Bergy’s shot beat Reimer on the blocker side with :50.2 seconds left and….and….We are tied?!?!?!

Remarkable! Three goals down in period three of game 7 and the Bruins have tied and the collapse is almost complete. Rich Peverley had a chance to win the game in regulation however, his shot from all alone in the slot but, ahhh, its Rich Peverley.

Overtime after what should have been a funeral for the Boston Bruins. Adrenaline pumping in the players and the fans are rocking the TD Garden.

A few innocuous scoring plays for both teams before Bergeron brings the puck in the attacking zone. Toronto players allow him to bring around behind the to Tyler Seguin who immdiately puts a shot on net. One rebound, a shot by Begeron, another rebound and sticks from both teams poke the puck right back to Bergeron who one times it home and this surreal adventure has left the Bruins and their fans in euphoria and the Maple Leaf collapse complete.

Toronto players were in shock, utter disbelief. Nazem Kadri was having good thoughts, for a while. “Obviously there were thoughts creeping into your mind, that we might be advancing to the second round,” said Kadri, “but at the end of the day we couldn’t handle the pressure that was given.” Joffrey Lupul tweeted “That hockey game will haunted me till the day I die.”

After many seven game disappontments I still don’t believe what I witnessed last night. The Bruins were dead in the water. Yet they managed to bring their will, their fortitude, their talent, but most of all their experience in these games to that final 10 minutes of regulation and show the young, playoff neophytes what these Stanley Cup Playoffs are really all about!

Wow! Just Wow!

~Diehard

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Nope! Not gonna happen!

Easy!  The Boston Bruins are always making things easy for themselves. Right?  They roll to a three to one series lead over the Toronto Maple Leafs and we all know that its ova!

Nah, we are oh so much smarter than that. Or are we?  Friday night at the TD Garden, there was an air of invincibility going into the building. The fans had that smug we know the Leafs are done attitude and for the most part sat there and waited for the Bruins to dispatch Toronto and go home for the weekend and get ready for the next victim. Ha! Instead, the Leafs came out in a phenomonal first period, put 19 shots on Tuukka Rask and came away with a hard fought 2-1 win.

Sunday back at the ACC in Toronto, thriving off their win and those fans, the Bruins again spotted Toronto a 2-goal lead before breaking James Reimer’s shutout with 26 seconds left in the game.

And now for the eighth time in the Bruins last eleven playoff series, there will be a winner take all seventh game. No one is sure why the team seems to always be here but thye are there, we are there and its just not fun anymore…well maybe it is but its not funny!

History, even recent history will show that game sevens have not been good for the hockey club. Yes they played three seven-game series during that marvelous year of 2011, winning them all. One in overtime and all three were one-goal games. But there was last seasons loss to the Capitals. They also lost game seven to Carolina, Montreal and that fabulous meltdown in 2010 to the Philadelphia Flyers even after leading 3-0 in the first period.

Lots of questions hang over the Bruins heads before tonights game. Will they be able to score?  Who will score as it seems only the Krejci-Lucic-Horton line has done most of the damage in the series, what little damamge the team has done.  Will Claude Julien mix up the lines should they be as stagnant as they’ve been?

One question that really has been answered and no matter what, Tuukka Rask has done everything asked of him. How many times can you ask your goaltender to pitch a shut out because you cannot score. If it weren’t for Rask, this series would’ve been long over.

Final question is my own and my answer is NO. I have no confidence that the Boston Bruins will come to play and take control early and often of this game.  They have shown most of the year that they do not play back to back games with the intensity that is need to win consistently in the playoffs. They have shown that they will not crash the net to make the goaltenders life more miserable. They have shown a propensity to not shoot when the opportunity is there instead they  try cutesy passes which have lead to odd man rushes.

So, will they make things easy for us and the team tonight or will we have to go through the madness of a lucky bounce here or there one way or another.

I hope I’m wrong, and I don’t usually predict, but I think this not going the right way tonight!

~Diehard

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Bruins Killer Instinct? Not Really!

The Chicago Black Hawks did it. The Los Angeles Kings did it. Two of the last three Stanley Cup Champions closed out their first round series when the first opportunity arose.

With the Boston Bruins leading their opening round series with the Toronto Maple Leafs, three games to one, and after the two outstanding performances they had north of the border, you expected a step on the throat, rip the heart out and put in a bag and give it back to them type of effort from the home team. All the anticipation of moving on to the next round of the war of attrition known as the Stanley Cup Playoffs

Instead it was the Maple Leafs that were doing the swarming and handing the Bruins their head and keeping their hopes alive of advancing. Pouncing on every move a Bruin would make and making life tough with 19 shots on Tuukka Rask in the first period.  Had it not been for some spectacular saves by the goalie, Boston would’ve been in a huge hole.

Meanwhile the Bruins mustered eight on James Reimer who handed out a bunch of rebounds but were just out of reach for Boston to capitalized. And it remain that way for most of the night as Toronto’s Tyler Bozak would score a shorthanded goal, in the second period and Clarke MacArthur would score the eventual game winner in the third before Zdeno Chara’s shots from the high slot would create some late drama but would be the only tally the Bruins would score on Leaf goaltender James Reimer who looked beatable at times but stopped 43 Bruins shots!

Both Maple Leaf goals came off turnovers by Bruins defenseman. Andrew Ference on the power play mishandled the puck at the blue line which sent Bozak in on a breakaway as Ference tried but could not catch him. Rask got a piece of the shot but not enough. Then in the third, Johnny Boychuk attempting a pass to Nathan Horton at center ice never got it there and MacArthur gathered the puck in, went around Boychuk, cut in front of Rask and a 2-0 Toronto lead and it was the Leafs who had the killer instinct as they sent this series to a game six at the Air Canada Center Sunday night.

For most of the season we’ve wondered where the Bruins killer instinct was. When they left Toronto after winning games three & four, we were hoping that coming back home with a chance to clinch the series and send the playoff young Maple Leafs packing with a nice-thanks for coming-salutation. Instead Boston’s performance was uneven for most of the game and as we’ve seen a lot lately, the defense had problems getting the puck out of their zone.

The last 10 minutes of the game was the only time a killer extinct was exhibited by the Bruins. On their only score, they had Toronto on their heals as an icing call had the faceoff in the Leafs end. Boston had possession of the puck for 1:25 ending with Chara’s goal. They did keep pressuring the Leafs but could not dent Reimer who play well enough for the win and his defense cleared away the voluminous rebounds he left.

No longer having a stranglehold on this series, the Bruins must now try to close it out Sunday in Toronto where the Leafs have not lost three in a row all season and that raukus crowd will be in full throat.

Toronto has been given life and killer instinct or not, the Boston Bruins had better find a way to win game 6 because if they let them up for air a second time, it may be their heart, and ours, that gets ripped out.

#Diehard

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Never Under-Estimate David Krejci

It has been said that in life you should never take for granted anything that you have. You should be proud for all you have and never forget just how fortunate you are. Actually it was my mom that used to say that to me all the time.

Which brings me back to the trading deadline this past season when a lot of so-called experts (fans and media) were throwing out the name of one David Krejci to be traded. Krejci was not the player that everyone thought he would be after the Bruins had signed him to a new contract during the 2011-2012 season.  They wanted him packaged and sent on his way for another teams mystery player.

Well in the words of The Heavy, “How you like me know?”

David Krejci is and always has been the premiere playoff performer for the Boston Bruins. In playoff year 2009, after his first full season with the Bruins, in 11 playoff games, he had two goals and six assists before the team was eliminated in the second round by the Canadiens in seven games.

In 2010, the Bruins were rolling along in the playoffs as Krejci potted four goals and four helpers in nine games unitl Game three of the second round when he took a viscous but legal hit from Philadelphia Flyers Mike Richards,  dislocating his wrist. He had surgery that night and the Bruins won that game to go up three to zero and without him, they would make history by losing the next four!

2011, the Stanley Cup Championship year, Krejci was Boston’s leading playoff scorer with 12 goals and 23 points in 25 games and had it not been for the Bruins Vezina winning goaltender Tim Thomas, he may well have won the Conn Smythe trophy for outstanding playoff performer.

Which brings us to Wednesday night’s magical performance in Toronto against the Maple Leafs. The game itself was just one of the best playoff games since the Cup run of 2011. Toronto scored early and late in the first period and headed into the first intermission with a 2-0 lead and the Torontonians were happy, loud, boisterous and confident. But they also had to kill a penalty called late in the period and carried over to the second and Patrice Bergeron would score on the powerplay 32 seconds into the 2nd period to put the Bs back into the game quickly.

But it was Krejci taking over as he went right into the crease to deflect in a Brad Marchand shot to tie the game before Nathan Horton slid a pass across the slot for a one-timer over the shoulder of Leaf goalie James Reimer and the Bruins had their first lead of the game.  Unfortunately they were a bit sloppy in their own zone and 44 seconds later Toronto’s Clarke MacArthur  would tie it at three.

The Bruins had not won back-to-back games in a month and it was Krejci with the Hat Trick goal and game winner in overtime that once again propels him to that Premiere Playoff Performer status. Yes he can’t do it alone as his linemate Horton took a knee on knee hit as he made the play to spring Krejci down the left side holding and holding before finding the spot that would put the Bruins in position to clinch the series back home at the TD Garden Friday night.

So be careful what you wish for and although sports teams should never fall in love with your players, never take for granted the talents of what is right in front of your eyes just because things aren’t working for you at the time. Right now, David Krejci, we like you pretty darn good.

~Diehard

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Bruins Flipped Switch Again – Off!

So that switched that was flipped on Wednesday as the Bruins played as complete a game as they did all season, was back in the off position Saturday night.  The Bruins did not look anything like the team that outworked and out matched and out scored the Toronto Maple Leafs as the suffered a 4-2 loss and allowed the Leafs to tie the series at one game a piece with the next two games in that playoff hockey starved hot bed known as the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

The team that seemed to sleepwalk through March and most of April was back in the second period of Saturdays game as the defense was very leaky as once again they had problems getting the puck out of their own zone as Toronto’s speedy forechecker put pressure on the Bruins and sometimes they obliged with turnovers. Taking bad penalties and not being able to kill them, and back to scoring two goals per game.  We’ve seen this movie before and all too often. The playoffs are not the time for a rerun.

Lest we forget, Toronto had a major say in how the game turned out. Leafs coach Randy Carlyle made some personnel and line changes and his team came out not looking like the stage fright playoff rookies they did in Game 1.  There top players played like top players as Joffrey Lupul Scored the leafs first two goals giving them a lead they would never relinquish. But the killer goal was a breakaway-monkey off his back-goal by former Bruin Phil Kessel who was virtually invisible on Wednesday.  It turned out to be the game winner as well.

Lupul said, “They’re putting a lot of attention toward Phil and shutting him down. Things aren’t going to be easy for him this series. For him to contribute a huge goal like that it’s big for us,”

When Kessel scored you could see that it wasn’t just any old playoff tally, he spread his arms wide and had a big smile as if to say ‘Thank you Boston’! It was the first goal he has scored at even strength against the Bruins since he was traded to the Leafs in September, 2009.

It was these times of breakdowns by Boston that is of more concern.  Three times the defense was caught up ice on odd man rushes which left a forward on defense, once Rich Peverley who was back in the lineup, and twice Milan Lucic was the lone defender.

Although the Bruins put 40 shots on goaltender James Reimer, the leafs made sure he could see most of them as the two that did elude him were net mouth deflections. It was a much better game for Reimer as he stopped a couple of point blank shots, one from Tyler Seguin and another from Gregory Campbell, but other than that, shots were perimeter or hit the Leaf Crest.

In past seasons Boston has owned the Leafs winner at every turn and in every way, but from their win in Boston, and returning home with the fans and the City of Toronto already in delirium by making the playoffs, the Bruins had better erase Saturday nights movie and remember how they played in Game 1 because who needs a rerun of last years opening round.

~Diehard

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Mid March Blues!

It’s hard to believe that we’re more than halfway through this truncated season, but things are starting to take shape for the Boston Bruins and the rest of the NHL.

Remember at the start of the year when the Bruins opened with the New York Rangers, and everyone was screaming that New York and Boston would be the two teams from the Eastern Conference fighting for the right to play for the Stanley Cup? Two months later, that isn’t quite how it’s played out. New York is clinging to eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, and it’s clearly apparent that all is just not right with the hometown black and gold.

The Bruins have lost their scoring touch, and if you aren’t scoring you can’t win. On their just-completed road trip, Nathan Horton and Milan Lucic had zero goals and zero assists for the Bruins. The team only lit the lamp six times, with the only forwards to record a goal being Tyler Seguin, Dan Paille, and Brad Marchand.

When you can’t score, it just puts more added pressure on your goaltending.  Say what you want about the Boston goaltenders — and my goodness, a lot of people have — but Anton Khudobin and Tuukka Rask have given up four goals only twice during the month of March. Yes, some of those goals have looked ugly, and the timing of them can be hurtful, but with the skaters in front not burying their chances, the Bruins’ netminders have had to basically pitch shutouts every night — and we all know that’s not humanly possible.

This little slump is nothing new for the Bruins, as it tends to happen every year around mid-season. However, this year there is no middle-of-the-year, and here we are rapidly approaching April. This is the time to hit a stride before the stretch run for the playoffs and lock down ones playoff positioning. It’s not the time to be trying to figure out what’s wrong, which is exactly what the Boston Bruins were left doing over the weekend.

So, what is a coach to do? It seems as though there will be line changes for Monday night’s game back home against the Toronto Maple Leafs, as Claude Julien moved Milan Lucic down to a line with Rich Perverley and Jordan Caron at practice on Sunday. That saw Nathan Horton skating with Marchand and David Krejci, and Daniel Paille matched up with Seguin and Patrice Bergeron. This team needs a spark, and Julien hopes the change will jump start the offensive malaise the forwards have been in.

When asked why he made these changes, Julien’s response was perfect: “Because I can. Because I’m the coach. And every once in a while, you’ve got to do those things. Simple as that. Well, we’ve scored six goals in the last four games,  so I think it’s time for a shakeup”

Losers of three out of the last four, this week brings three division opponents in the next four games — including the division-leading Montreal Canadiens to Boston on Wednesday night. Boston currently trails Montreal by two points in the standings — a deficit they could have cancelled out with a win in Toronto on Saturday night. But instead, it was just another lost opportunity to catch the Habs for the Bruins.

Monday night’s game against the Leafs is the final game-in-hand Boston has over Montreal. It’s a game they need to use to regain their confidence, compete level and, more than anything, their scoring touch.

It might take more than one game to re-find all of that, but those are the three things the Bruins will need the rest of the way if they plan on being the team out of the East.

~Diehard

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Bruins doing exactly what they should!

Twenty two games down and what do we know about the Boston Bruins.  We know that despite the panic that set into the fandom when a two game losing streak hits, that all it takes is a couple of solid wins and everything is back to normal in Boston Hockey land. The Bruins settled the bridge jumpers by not allowing the third period breakdowns that lead to all three of their regulation losses. Solid goaltending from both Anton Khudobin and Tuukka Rask and the number two line being upgraded to the number one line as Bergeron centering Tyler Seguin and Brad Marchand has produced a mountain of points (38) in their last ten games. Seguin has six goals and 13 points in his last 11 games.

Obviously the scoring has been their, its just as the coach says, putting together a full 60 minute effort consistently! Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers, the Bruins did exactly that in all phases of the game.  Tuukka Rask was stout in goal on the limited number of chances Boston’s defense allowed, whether on the power play or even strength. Tyler Seguin continues his torrid pace with another power play goal, his 8th on the year. Even better was the contributions from the third and fourth lines as Chris Kelley & Daniel Paille each potted a goal. Since the start of the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs, when Kelly scores, Boston is a remarkable 26-0-0, according to brilliant stat man @MichaelSBerger. Kelly knows and even says “I need to score more” in order for the Bruins to continue their winning ways.  Without those contributions from lines 3 & 4, well, teams will put their best checkers on the top lines and if the likes of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Seguin can’t fight through those checks, the Bruins are in trouble.

So far, the team has been able to avoid a losing streak of any significance and Claude Julien remains steady in his coaching philosophy of rolling four lines, playing in your own end is as important as any other place on the ice.  As frustrating as that can be for fans and media alike, and it takes a lot not to question him, I respect him for not allowing outside sources to influence his decisions of how his brand of hockey should be played. After all, we do have June 15, 2011.

Bostonians have become somewhat spoiled in how they view there teams success. The Bruins will be just fine as long as everyone does the things that are asked of them and get contributions from everyone.   With just about half this shortened season gone, there is no reason for panic.

~Diehard

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