Grandma and Grandpa, in your day, you cheered for Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito. But in ours, we get to cheer for players just as good. In our day, we get to watch Patrice Bergeron, Milan Lucic and Zdeno Chara shred the hockey world and prove that Boston might finally be the greatest town in hockey.
After falling down in Game One of their second round, semifinals series with Montreal, the Bruins were a little lost. Though they out-hit the Canadians 56-45 and out-shot them 51-33, the Bruins were undisciplined taking 4 penalties one of which would cost the Bruins the game when PK Subban scored the overtime winner on the power play. Also during the game, the Bruins struggled to actually notch quality shots on goal and for that reason they scored just 3 goals. Finally, they started slow and though 3 goals may have been okay, they were down 2-0 after one period and had to work through an unfathomably exhausting 3rd period comeback to even get the game to overtime.
After the game ended Tuukka Rask stated with harsh reality "when you suck, you suck". He was of course speaking of his own play in the lackluster game. Furthermore, players like David Krejci tried to address more finite aspects of the loss. "I thought we had so many chances, we could have scored like 10 goals [in Game 1]," Krejci said. "But we didn't and hopefully we're saving it for the next game."
Milan Lucic also talked about how to capitalize on the goal scoring opportunities the Bruins were generating "Going into next game, I guess the main focus is you don't want to grip your stick too tight and bury those opportunities when you get them, it sucks losing the way that we did, it was a tough loss to swallow, but you've got to have short-term memory and forget about it as quick as you can and focus on the next one because it's coming soon with a 12:30 game tomorrow. We're excited about it."
But once again, things did not go as planned as Game Two kicked off. Though they got through the first period with a 1-0 lead that came off of a Danial Pallie snapshot 13 minutes into the game, the Canadians pulled their Bostonian rivals back with two goals in the second period scored by Mike Weaver and Thomas Vanak respectively.
Down by a goal after 40 minutes, the Bruins were once again showing signs of collapse that were prevalent in Game One. They had allowed uncontested shots from all over the ice and were failing to clear bodies away from their net. They skated with neither force nor direction and were caught out of play far to many times for fans to be happy with the game at that point and above all they simply were not breaking out of their own zone with nearly enough efficacy. After the Canadians extended their lead to two goals at the start of the 3rd period, the Bruins finally got their heads on straight and got to work. 10 minutes and 56 into the period, Patrice Bergeron finally launched a clean cross ice pass over to Brad Marchand who then dug his skates into the ice and pulled off an ankle breaking pivot turn that shock off any defender who tried to cover him. With nobody in sight, Dougie Hamilton skated into the offensive zone and took the pass from Marchand with not a single Canadian within 20 feet of him. Hamilton then skated with the puck for a second thus drawing those defenders whom Marchand had lost into a blinding crossing pattern in front of their own net. With ease, he then pushed his wrist shot into the net. But the game was not tied yet. No way.
But less than 4 minutes after the Hamilton goal, the game was tied. Brad Marchand dug the puck out of the corner and Patrice Bergeron skated with his back turned towards the net over to the hash marks. Once the pass did come however, Bergeron had turned towards the net and proceeded to rip a wrist shot towards the goal that skipped ridiculously off the ice over the shoulder of Carey Price.
It was that goal that not only tied the game but ignited a fire in the team and the fans that gave you a feel that the Bruins were not done scoring. After a furious attack that spanned several shifts, Reiley Smith shot a long pass up to Zdeno Chara at the point. As Chara moved the puck down to the opposite side of the offensive zone, Brad Marchand got taken down in front of the net but in doing so got tangled up with Alex Galchenyuk dragging him awkwardly into the crease thus obstructing Cary Price's view of Reily Smith as he was once again delivered the puck. When he shot a top corner stab at the open part of the net, Carey Price had no chance. The puck beat him by a mile and the Boston Bruins had once again harnessed their playoff magic by obliterating a team that was so sure they had the game won.
"It was a fun last part of the third period," said Torey Krug, who set up Smith's goal. "We're very excited with how things turned out, but we've got to move along from it pretty soon."
That last part his brutally true. The Bruins will fly out to Montreal for games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Thursday where they will try to win both games and get home with a chance to keep this a short series. But in all likelihood, that will not happen because we all know how these stories go. When the Bruins and Canadians meet 7 is a number fans know they will have to befriend.
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