Series even: In rough and tumble game, Bruins even series with Detroit at 1-1

Game One was a small hiccup for the Bruins that took place where the eyes of the league were on their backs. The Bruins were and still are tentative favorites to win the Stanley Cup this year. That accolade by definition makes them clear cut favorites to win their series with Detroit in this first round.

But Game One threatened to change that. The Bruins were bested by the Redwings via a last second goal that very well should have been saved by Tuukka Rask and at times were made to look confused and unorganized in the face of the omnipresent-in-the-playoffs Redwings.

But the Bruin did not panic. In fact they handled their defeat very well minimizing the loss while at the same time stressing the importance of getting a win in Game Two. They lived in the moment and accepted that the past was the past. 

“We’re fine,” Coach Julien said. “It’s a seven-game series. You certainly don’t get down on yourself because of a 1-0 loss; it could have gone either way. It just shows you how close and tight it is. We just have to be better in certain areas that we talked about this morning and hopefully we’ll be able to bring it to the game tomorrow, and if we do that hopefully the outcome will change.”

Other players on the team seemed more focused on how important it would be to avoid going down by 2 games in the series. The Bruins have proved to be a resilient team in recent years, most notably overcoming 0-2 series deficits against the Canadians and Chanuks in their 2011 cup run. But even that does not make 0-2 a favorable position for Boston as the series shifts to Detroit on Tuesday. 

“We’ve got to do a better job of playing our game, establishing more time in the offensive zone,” Milan Lucic said Saturday. “A lot of the times, what we talk about throughout the season that has made us successful is puck management and obviously that’s going to be an important part of this series for both teams, and that needs to get better heading into tomorrow.”

And not only did they understand the importance of Game Two but they also worked to find what went wrong in that Game One and what they could improve upon. 

“I think we were physical enough [Friday],” said Bruins coach Claude Julien. “We still had a lot of good hits, but they do a good job when it comes to our forecheck. They get there and like to have bodies in front of us on the forecheck to kind of slow us down, and we’ve got to find ways to get through that. There’s no question about that."

“That’s one of the reasons that we weren’t as effective on our forecheck [Friday] as we have in the past, so we’ve got to find ways to get through that," he added. "And if they’re going to slow us down, if we’re skating hopefully they’ll end up taking penalties. But we’ve got to work through those kinds of things and establish the forecheck that we feel is an important part of our game.”

Physicality wise, the Bruins were dull in game one failing to exploit that 'edge play' that intimidates opponents. Just 3 penalties were committed in Game One.

But none of that was the case in Game Two as the Bruins beat up the Redwings intimidating their first round foes and leveling the playing field in the series. They mashed 33 hits and took 7 penalties in a game that frustrated and humiliated the Redwings. At times it seemed that one of the few teams with more playoff experience than the Bruins were completely petrified by them. 

The Bruins outscored the Redwings 4-1 with at least 3 of their 4 goals coming in the worst ways. They included goals off giveaways by Jimmy Howard and cheap five hole poke shots from the front of the net that all brought the play of the entire Detroit defense under question. 

But perhaps the most humiliating aspect of Game Two for the Redwings was the incident that took place at the 20 minute mark of the first period. Frustrated at the state of the game, pint sized forward Brendan Smith tried to pick a fight with Bruin monster Zdeno Chara. While they did not actually fight, Chara basically made the Detroit star look like a graceless kid with no care for his own well-being. 

And the humiliation for Smith did not end at the end with the game. After the game his Boston Bruin brother, Reily Smith told reporters that it was "probobly not the best decision" his brother had made and soon after that, photos of Chara's demonic smile as he pummeled Smith's face circulated the internet and furthers this delegitimasation of the Redwing's physical presence.  

All and all, with a stunning 4-1 demolition of the Redwings, the Bruins climbed back into the series and seized momentum as the battle shifts west to Detroit for games 3 and 4.