Boston Bruins (37-17-5, 79 points) at New York Rangers (33-25-3, 69 points)
7:00PM. March 2nd, 2014.
Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Now is the time that Bruins fans, coaches and players all stand up and say 'enough is enough'.
In a month of March that holds more games than off days than the Bruins, losing two straight games at its start, both because of terrible defense by the team, warns of spiraling into a serious problem. In two games now, the Bruins have allowed 9 goals and scored just 6. They have on at least 3 occasions surrendered crippling breakaways that on all 3 occasions resulted in goals for the other team and in several others left the opponent's best players with time and space to blast laser shots past whatever goalie the Bruins decide to dress. Also, the Bruins have struggled to stay out of the penalty box in these games, setting up 12 power plays for the other team and on 3 occasions failing to kill them.
Though two games really is just a small sample size compared to the magnitude of the much larger 82 game season, these Bruins come into their 3rd game since the Sochi Olympics desperate to sustain the 4 point lead on the rest of the Atlantic division that they managed to give themselves in their final few games BEFORE the break. This is a game they really want to win.
But in order to do that they cannot play as a bad defensive games as they have against the Sabers and Capitals respectively. Bruin captain Zdeno Chara who was held accountable for the final goal in Wednesday's OT loss in Buffalo knows this.
"For sure that wasn't our best game," captain Zdeno Chara said. "We could have done a number of things differently and better. We have to learn from games like this."
Claude Jullian spoke more specifically.
"We're getting caught cheating too much in the offensive side and it's ending up in the back of the net," Claude said. "It's something we need to fix because we're giving up too many goals."
The Bruins are having no problem scoring goals, it is preventing them that has troubled Boston of late. In this game against the Rangers, it may be safe to predict that against a Rangers offence that bases it's offence mainly off of complicated passing schemes in their own zone and then sneaky plays that float a forward out behind an opponent's defenders the Bruins blue liners stay back a bit more than usual.
On the other side of things though, it seems that the Rangers may need a win just as much as the Bruins do. Sitting just 2 points secure of a playoff spot in the highly contested Metropolitin division, the Rangers also have struggled in their first two games most recently dropping a 4-2 contest in Philadelphia Saturday afternoon.
All and all, this will be a fun game between two big teams with playoff intentions and it will be a game the Bruins want desperately to win.
0 comments:
Post a Comment