Under the guise of celebrating a friend's birthday, I made the trip to Boston on Saturday night for the second game of the Bruins-Canadiens playoff series. While the home team flopped, putting them down 0-2 in the Eastern conference quarterfinals, the experience was still essentially a gift to everyone involved Happy 21st, Alex!
A few positives about the game: The B's never dwelled on their mistakes, allowing them to maintain a breakneck pace. Forward Patrice Bergeron scored Boston's sole goal, earning me minor bragging rights amongst my friends because I was wearing his jersey. Finally, the Bruins took 35 shots on the night compared to 26 by the Habs.
Unfortunately, all of those positives are really just silver linings to big-picture problems. Let's start with how Boston was able to bounce back from mistakes, which is a skill we admittedly don't see often on the collegiate level. The issue here is that the Bruins actually made a lot of mistakes mistakes that made them look amateur like mishitting the puck on attempted slapshots. The quick pace of the game probably did more favors to Montreal, since Boston never seemed in control.
Discounting my bragging rights, one goal doesn't accomplish much in the playoffs enough to earn Bergeron a three-star designation for the night, but certainly not enough for a win against Montreal.
As far as the shot differential, it's very misleading in this case. Despite having excellent seats at the game, I was consistently surprised to see the Bruins' shot tally rise and rise, as only a handful seemed to pose any threat to the Habs' Carey Price in net. Price was offered a host of high glove-side shots and caught them easily, negating any opportunity for rebounds. On the other side of the ice, Boston veteran Tim Thomas was forced to work hard to compensate for defensive troubles.
Here's my main concern: If this is what happens in Boston, what will the upcoming two road games look like? The Bruins faithful are rabidly supportive and loud, and probably made up about 97 percent of the crowd. The TD Garden shook with pro-USA cheers, ironic and slightly misguided, perhaps, as the Bruins can only claim three U.S. citizens on their current roster. But the masses were quieted by the middle of the third period, as the play grew stagnant and time drained down.
On four power plays, the Bruins were scoreless always a warning sign. The final man-up opportunity came early in the third period, when Habs defenseman P.K. Subban was tossed in the sin bin for tripping. After some fight in the first stanza, Subban had been booed every time he got his stick on the puck, so this could have been an opportunity for the Bruins to find a spark. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.
B's captain Zdeno Chara, suffering from a virus, was notably missing from the game hopefully he'll be healthy in time for Montreal. Along with better defense and better offense, the Bruins will have to draw fire from the return of their leader to overcome what is sure to be a strong home-ice presence for the Habs.
As proof of the Habs' dedicated fan base, born-and-bred Canadian chain Boston Pizza will be changing its name to Montreal Pizza at all 26 of its Quebec locations. Granted, Boston has never felt the need to name its pizza after anything Canadian in the first place, but still that shows passion.
Post-game, New England's skies opened up in distress over the loss, and the rain kept going right until it hit Hanover. The Bruins have fallen 0-2 in the playoffs before, 26 times in fact, and never before have they made it out of the hole. This year, not much seems to suggest that Boston can break the pattern when a game's flaws can all be generalized into the category of "Bad Mistakes," it's hard to make improvements.
