The well-deserved moniker conjures images of the schoolyard back in the day, when bullies took what they wanted, enforced their own rules with intimidation and the only way to survive was either to toe the line or run like a bastard...
Bullies aren't know for their speed, as a general rule, but they have long memories and usually live by the axiom that revenge is a dish best served cold - and it is very cold on the TD Garden ice sheet, where on Thursday night, the Bruins bided their time and chased the speedy Montreal Canadiens all over the joint, finally catching them after spotting them a two goal lead and laying a brutal third period beating on them...
...Reilly Smith and Torey Krug scored goals within three minutes of each other early in the third period and Johnny Boychuk tied the game with two minutes left in regulation to send the game to overtime, where the Bruins' dominated play and even managed to kill off a Canadiens' power play that bridged the gap between overtime and double overtime.
But they couldn't do it twice, wasting a fifty-one shot strafing of Montreal goaltender Carey Price when defenseman P.K. Subban nailed a power play drive from the point 4:17 into the second serving of free hockey and dropping a 4-3 decision that had netminder Tuukka Rask seething.
“I was shit tonight,’’ said Rask, not too worried that anyone would blame him for his disgust. “When you suck, you suck."
"We played overall good five-on-five, pretty much dominated" Rask said after getting his daily allotment of colorful metaphors out of the way. "We had a lot of chances, couldn't score. I gotta be better."
How many chances? Well, when one considers that Price had to make a play on 51 shots, his defense blocked 30 and the Bruins' just plain missed the goal 17 times - that's 98 times that the Bruins fired at Price, nearly twice as many times as the Canadiens offered at Rask.
No wonder he's pissed off.
Bruins' Projected Lineup
Forwards
Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Jarome Iginla
Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Reilly Smith
Justin Florek - Carl Soderberg - Loui Eriksson
Daniel Paille - Gregory Campbell - Shawn Thornton
Defensive pairings
Zdeno Chara -Johnny Boychuk
Matt Bartkowski - Kevan Miller
Torey Krug - Dougie Hamilton
Goaltenders
Tuukka Rask
Chad Johnson
Chad Johnson
"I didn't mind the way our team played tonight. We had lots of chances, and sure, we fell behind 2-0, but we showed some resiliency and came back." Bench boss Claude Julien said at the post-game presser. "I thought we carried the play for the most part, and obviously in that first OT period, the only thing is we have to find a way to bury those great opportunities we had. That's probably where there are some regrets there in not burying those chances."
Missing point-blank chances at yawning nets has been an unfortunate calling card for the Bruins in these playoffs, with Brad Marchand hexed beyond reason in the quarterfinals win over the Red Wings, and now the bug has spread like wildfire on the Bruins' roster - at least in the opener of the Eastern Conference Semifinals with Montreal...
...from loose pucks sitting for so long in the crease that play seemed suspended in time to just plain bad luck, had the Bruins buried just one of their dozens of chances, there would have been no overtime - and though every player and coach from both teams knows it, no one is going to say it loud enough for anyone to hear, but the way the Canadiens' are talking, it's obvious that they saw the same thing that Julien did.
Canadiens' Projected Lineup
Forwards
Max Pacioretty - David Desharnais - Tomas Vanek
Brandon Prust - Tomas Plekanic - Brendan Gallagher
Rene Bourque - Lars Eller - Brian Gionta
Travis Moen - Danny Briere - Dale Weise
Defensive pairings
Josh Gorges - P.K. Subban
Andrei Markov - Alexei Emelin
Francis Boullion - Mike Weaver
Goaltenders
Carey Price
Peter Budaj
"We’re happy that we won Game 1,” said traditional Bruins' killer Tomas Vanek, “but I don’t think any of us are happy with how we won it. So we just need to all improve by tomorrow, and I think we will.”
And by tomorrow, Vanek means Saturday at TD Garden in North Boston in a 12:30 pm matinee.
Apparently, neither team is under any delusion - and in a series like this, neither can afford to be. There are no adjustments that need to be made, just drop the puck, skate hard and skate clean - maybe get Tuukka a bar of soap for his mouth - and let the hockey universe unfold as it should
We played like a team that hasn't played in 10 days," said Montreal coach Michel Therrien, "But the positive side of things is that even if I expect us to be better in the next game, we found a way to win. That's what's important."
That is important - so important, in fact, that the Bruins' need to try it out - because if they head to that loony bin in Montreal down two games to one, the producers of the national postgame show are going to need a three-second delay to account for Tuukka's self-depreciating rants...
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