Bruins Scalp Blackhawks; Tighten Grip On Playoff Spot

The Boston Bruins played a little leapfrog in Chicago on Sunday afternoon.

Oh sure, there was some hockey being played, but since the Chicago Blackhawks had clinched the Central Division title in the NHL's Western Conference on Saturday night, only the Bruins had any chance of improving their playoff seeding, as two points for a win would enable them to jump over both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators for second place in the Atlantic Division...

...and thanks to an unassisted wrister from defenseman Kevan Miller midway through the final period and some nifty goaltending down the stretch from Anton Khudobin, the Bruins did just that, winning their fifth straight match with a 3-2 victory at the United Center in Chicago.

Forward Brad Marchand passes from the low circle

Miller picked up a loose puck at center ice, split two defenders crossing the blue line, his momentum taking him to the top of the left circle where he found himself wide open, firing a top-shelf, glove-side snipe past Chicago netminder Corey Crawford for what would be the eventual gamer.

The Bruins never trailed, taking command of the scorebaord on a Ryan Spooner redirection of a Zdeno Chara tumbler that easily beat Crawford and a Patrice Bergeron one-timer off a Brad Marchand feed from the right dashers to make it 2-0 after one period.  The Blackhawks scored once in the middle frame and once in the third to keep it interesting...

...but Khudobin shut them down during a furious final two minutes after Chicago pulled Crawford for the extra skater, staking the Bruins to their fifth consecutive victory.

Spooner's redirect came on what appeared to be a purposeful off-speed shot from Chara from above the left circle, making contact with the tumbling puck in the low slot, it's natural momentum lofting it into the top corner of the net before Crawford knew it was behind him, while Bergeron's one-timer came off of Marchand's dump pass into the high slot...

...the Blackhawk defenders overskating the trailing Bergeron and Marchand's delay while waiting on Bergeron to enter the zone drawing Crawford to the glove side, giving Bergeron a clean line of sight to the low stick-side where he planted the puck for a 2-0 Bruins' advantage.

Artemi Panarin got the Blackhawks within one late in the second period with his 30th of the season, a weird rebound shot that hit a teammate that had slid into the goal, the puck bouncing right back out to Panarin, who planted it firmly back into the net on Khudobin's blocker side - but Miller built the lead back to two with his unassisted drive in the third.

Jordin Tootoo potted a cheap wrister from a scrum on the low slot just seconds later, but Khudobin managed to stop everything else to pick up his sixth win of the season against five losses and a tie - though all of his wins have come in his last six starts, and has allowed two goals or fewer in five of six games in that span in which his save percentage has been an impressive .928.

Next up for the Bruins is a critical three-game homestand, hosting Tampa Bay on Tuesday, Ottawa on Thursday and Washington on Saturday

Milan Lucic came into Saturday night's game against the Washington Capitals a frustrated man.

The Boston Bruins' left winger didn't mince words in discussing the slow start to his season,

Canadiens eliminate Bruins; face Rangers in Eastern Conference Finals

The tension was so thick in TD Garden that the folks at home could probably feel it seeping from their television speakers.

After all, in each of the first six games of the Eastern Conference Semifinal series between the hometown Boston Bruins and their arch-nemesis from north of the border, the team that has scored first has been the victor - and just over two minutes in, the Montreal Canadiens had the lead.

Almost immediately afterward and amidst nervous rumblings from the capacity crowd, Bruins' forward Brad Marchand was thrown into the clinks for interfering with Habs' goalie Carey Price, giving Montreal a power play four short minutes later...

...down by a goal and shorthanded was pretty much the nightmare scenario for the Bruins to start the winner-take-all Game 7, and the Canadiens could smell the blood in the water, delivering as much punishment to the Bruins as they could muster without ending up in the box themselves, wanting to seize the opportunity to take total control of the game before the bear woke up.

Which happened just before the end of the first period, but the way that Canadiens' goalie Carey Price was playing, it didn't make any difference.

Max Pacioretty scored the game winner midway through the second period, joining Dale Weise and Daniel Brière with goals that the Bruins made look too easy, the Canadiens beating Boston at TD Garden by a score of 3-1 and advancing to the meet the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final.

Price was fantastic, stopping all but one of Boston's 30 shots - a Jarome Iginla power play goal the lone blemish - while Bruins' goaltender Tuukka Rask faced only 18 Canadiens' offerings, though it seemed like thrice as many, but allowed three to find the net as he was again victimized by sloppy defensive play in front of him and a relentless Montreal forecheck.

The Weise goal was as easy as they come - a textbook backdoor job set up by Daniel Brière, who drew the Bruins' box toward him to the left circle while Weise floated in behind the defenders, then it was just a matter of a simple pass across the low slot to the uncovered Canadien, who directed the point blank offering into the open net on Rask's glove side...

...Pacioretty's gamer playing out almost identically, this time Patrice Bergeron whiffing on a clearing attempt and with the Bruins anticipating a rush the other way vacating the zone, David Desharnais had only Torey Krug to beat, but instead slid a pass just out of reach of the sprawling defenseman and right into Pacioretty's wheelhouse for the one-timer and a two goal lead.

The Bruins got that one back with two minutes left in the middle frame on Iginla's redirect of a Krug drive, but untimely penalties and the swarming Canadiens defense ensured that Boston would get no closer, and Brière potted an insurance dagger with just under three minutes left in regulation, taking a Brendan Gallagher feed from the right wing and splitting Zdeno Chara and Matt Bartkowski and somehow slipping the puck between Rask and the goal post.

This one is going to sting for a while, the Bruins missing on two straight chances to eliminate their most hated rivals, outworked and outscored by a total of seven goals to one in losing the final two games of the series.

Boston Bruins on Paper - Habs' Subban "can't wait" to take the TD Garden crowd out of Game 7

Shawn Thornton describes it as "Awesome", but it's unclear how many Boston Bruins' fans feel the same way about the impending Game 7 with the Montreal Canadiens scheduled for Wednesday night, particularly in light of the collective egg the Bruins laid in Game 6.

On a general scale, things just don't get better for a sports fan than the words "Game Seven", and absolutely nothing beats a series finale in the National Hockey League -  and you don't have to traipse through a time portal any further back than last season's Eastern Conference quarterfinals match between the Bruins and Maple Leafs to understand why...

Physical play should rule Game 7 on Wednesday night

...but while fans are emotionally invested in the outcome of each game, the players have to keep their emotions in check, but to listen to Thornton tell it, one can just feel the excitement oozing from every word.

“You can let it tighten you up or you can really feed off the fact that this is what you trained your whole life for, these situations,” Thornton gushed “That’s kinda the way I’ve approached it. This is awesome. This is the best time of year.”

That about sums it up for everyone - and Thornton, the Bruins' self-appointed P. K. Subban agitator and team spokesman, makes it sound like Christmas, the first day of spring and the first bite of a real Philly cheesesteak all rolled into one.

“It’s Game 7,” Torey Krug said of he and his teammates finding the urgency missing from their play in Game 6. “If you don’t have it, there’s something wrong with you.” 

But, how does one find that level of intensity for a Game 7 after melting like a s'more early in Game 6?

“I think it’s kind of how we played in Game 5,” defenseman Dougie Hamilton reminisced. “I thought we were playing pretty desperate in that game, and it isn’t about changing our game, it’s about focusing on the details and working hard and focusing on the things we’re good at. It’s about having a good start again, obviously, and not having to try to come back and to try to play with the lead.”

Bruins' Projected Lineup

Forwards

Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Jarome Iginla

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Reilly Smith

Matt Fraser - Carl Soderberg - Loui Eriksson

Daniel Paille - Gregory Campbell - Shawn Thornton

Defensive pairings

Zdeno Chara - Dougie Hamilton

Matt Bartkowski - Johnny Boychuk

Torey Krug - Kevan Miller

Goaltenders

Tuukka Rask
Chad Johnson

One person that feels the same way as Thornton is Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban, but for more sinister reasons.

"It's going to be great," Subban said, though not exactly going in the same direction as Thornton, the already despised face of the Habs raising the bar of hate even higher. "I can't wait for the crowd, the noise, the energy in the building. I can't wait to take that all away from them."

Come to think of it, that may be why Thornton is so looking forward to Wednesday night - the chance to send Subban and his cohorts on vacation.  Violently.

Subban has been - unquestionably - the best player in this series, but in games four and five was held in check by the Bruins, who took the risky avenue of playing him tighter at the point -and punking him at every opportunity - when previously they had given him plenty of space to operate, not wanting him to use his superior skating and excellent puck handling skills to get behind their defense...

...and part of the desperate measures that the Bruins need to take in Game 7 is to get back to being physical with Subban and try to take him out of the offense - something that Canadiens' coach Michel Therrien doesn't think can happen, given the gravity of the moment.

“P.K. Subban’s been phenomenal since the playoffs started, even at the end of the season,” Therrien said. “He’s a gamer. He’s a guy that will bring his team to a new level, another level when the games count. He’s been a leader on the ice.” 

 Canadiens' Projected Lineup

Forwards

Max Pacioretty - David Desharnais - Brendan Gallgher 

Michael Bournival -Tomas Plekanec - Tomas Vanek

Rene Bourque - Lars Eller -Brian Gionta

Travis Moen - Danny Briere - Dale Weise

Defensive pairings

Josh Gorges - P.K. Subban

Andrei Markov - Alexei Emelin

Nathan Beaulieu - Mike Weaver

Goaltenders

Carey Price

Peter Budaj

It goes without saying that the crowd at TD Garden will be wild, and while nothing the Bruins' P.R. staff can pull out of their top hat of technology is going to top the incredible psyche job that the Canadiens' pulled off during their pre-game spectacle (you have to admit, that kid lighting the ice "on fire" is pretty wicked) - just unfurling the Bruins' banner and Rene Rancourt signing his guts out and giving his traditional salute to the military and his "Stump Pump" fist pump does the trick...

...which doesn't impress Subban at all, his comments regarding the crowd at the Bruins' game telling one all they need to know about how he plans to deal with the hostile crowd.

"I don't give them that credit," Subban said on Tuesday. "I go and play the game. I play to win, I don't care who's there, I don't care if there's nobody in the stands. I'm going there to win. It's irrelevant to me."

"I hope that it's a hostile environment, it makes it all better."

After saying something like that, Subban will become even more of a target than he normally is in Boston. Will he be able to back up those words? Will he wilt in the face of the hostile Bruins crowd? Will Thornton soak him down with an industrial-sized water bottle this time?

The only way to shut down the crowd in Boston is to jump out to a big lead, and sometimes even that doesn't work - again, reference back to the Maple Leafs' series last season - but leave it to the level, shiny head of Boston coach Claude Julien to reduce the game down to basic human fundamentals, to break down the brand of urgency and desperation that is needed to win a Game 7 against their most hated rival.

“I think desperation is going out there and giving it the best shot you can,” Julien quipped, calmly. “The last thing you want is regrets. And if you hold back the things you know you can do, and you don’t leave it all out on the ice, then you have regrets. So, that’s what desperation is all about, leaving it all out on the ice and you can walk away knowing you gave it your best shot.”

With a better focus and a few gratuitous bounces, there shouldn't be any regrets - only a trip to the Conference finals where the New York Rangers await the winner of this match...

Comedy of errors doom Boston Bruins as Habs force Game 7

Boston Bruins' coach Claude Julien wanted his team to come out and match the desperation-fueled intensity that he expected the Montreal Canadiens to fire out of the gates with in Monday night's Game 6 as they tried to stave off elimination.

What he got instead was an ugly 4-0 loss and a winner-take-all Game 7 in Boston on Wednesday night.

Up three games to two and with a chance to clinch their best-of-seven Eastern Conference Semifinals series, the Bruins laid an egg, practically handing the Canadiens scoring chances as the Habs scored on two embarrassing defensive faux pas, one on a power play and one into an empty net to ice the game.

Habs' David Desharnais (51) makes a crazy save on a Jarome Iginla offering

The Bruins?  On Monday night they couldn't have scored at a bar full of cougars.

Especially the way that the Canadiens were contesting everything - laying out to block shots, winning on the dashers, causing chaos with their swarming neutral zone defense and tight zone box protecting the slot - the Montreal defensemen escorting the forwards to the wings and intercepting nearly every centering pass that actually made it through the lumber.

Despite all of that, the Bruins still made their own chances, but continued their post-season long habit of drawing iron and missing wide open nets, while the Canadiens connected on their opportunities, which were the kind served on a silver platter by the sloppy Bruins' defense.

The carnage started almost immediately, the Canadiens' pressure down low on Bruins' defenseman Torey Krug forcing a bounce pass to rookie blue liner Kevan Miller, who misplayed the funky carom and the puck squirted into the slot where Habs forward Lars Eller gathered it in and went backhand on Rask, who abandoned the crease to try and poke check the puck away from Eller.

That goal just 2:11 into the game turned out to be the eventual game winner, as Montreal goalie Carey Price stopped all 26 shots he faced to make the lead stand for the remaining 57:49 of regulation.

But the Bruins weren't finished making mistakes, and the Canadiens were far from finished scoring.

Montreal blew the game wide open with two goals during a short, intense 2:15 span of the late second period, rookie blue liner Nathan Beaulieu got hold of a deflected Loui Eriksson point drive and led Max Pacioretty with a tumbling stretch pass after he had released and gotten behind the defensive pairing of Zdeno Chara and Dougie Hamilton...

...Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask still had a chance to make a play on the puck, but perhaps thought better of it after the earlier Eller goal and got caught in no man's land when Pacioretty split the defense and reached the puck before Chara, planting the puck behind Rask for an easy 2-0 lead.

Tomas Vanek then made it a three goal lead, cleaning up a loose puck that emerged from a scrum in front of the Bruins' net with Gregory Campbell in the penalty box, poking it in the open net before Rask could square his shoulders, and the game was essentially over.

The only spark of energy that came from the Bruins was an eruption of frustration with 24 seconds remaining in the game - no gloves were dropped but that didn't prevent Chara and Jarome Iginla from shoving their gloved fists in Mike Weaver's and Brian Gionta's respective grills, perhaps trying to send a message in advance of Game 7 in Boston...

...but if that's all they have to hold on to, it's going to have to be enough as the desperation is now on both teams - and if the Bruins can't get up for a winner-take-all Game 7 against their oldest and most bitter rivals - if they can't find their effort, if they can't find the defensive intensity and close out the series, they have only to look back at Monday night's comedy of errors to realize where it went wrong.

Because when you gift wrap scoring chances the way the Bruins did, the present inside is called momentum - and going into an elimination game looming, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Boston Bruins' on Paper - Bruins looking to eliminate Habs in Montreal on Monday night

All things being equal, the Boston Bruins are a better team than the Montreal Canadiens.

Sure, the Bruins have a three games to two lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference Semifinals series against the Canadiens - with Game 6 on tap for Monday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal - but the President's Trophy winners haven't made it easy on themselves.

Julien's quiet confidence has Bruins on brink of eliminating the Habs

Eighteen times the Bruins have given the Canadiens the man advantage in five games, yielding seven power play goals in the process.  The good news for Bruins' fans is that, just as in the quarterfinals series against the Detroit Red Wings, the Canadiens are having trouble finding the dirty ice at even strength, scoring a total of six goals with all things equal...

...one of those being defenseman P.K. Subban's breakway goal coming out of the penalty box uncovered, meaning that only five of the Habs' 13 tallies have been straight up.

By comparison, 13 of Boston's 15 goals in this series have come five-on-five - finding twine on just two of their twelve power play opportunities.

Any better outcome on either the penalty kill or the power play, and this series would already be over.

Montreal has gone two games since scoring an even strength goal against Boston, an impressive stretch for the Bruins that has seen them completely shut the door on the Canadiens' offense, save a power play goal and an extra-attacker tally in Game 5 - in fact, since the Habs scored on a Dale Weise drive midway through the second period of Game 3, Montreal hasn't gotten one past Bruins' goalie Tuukka Rask at even strength.

"We're playing against a very good team; if you look at the stats it's one of the best teams at 5-on-5,"  said top line forward David Desharnais "It's tough, but we have to find a way. If we get some power plays we need to take advantage of that and create some momentum to score 5-on-5."

That said, there seems to be one sure-fire way to beat the Canadiens on Monday night and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second year in a row: Keep everything equal.

Bruins' Projected Lineup

Forwards

Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Jarome Iginla

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Reilly Smith

Matt Fraser - Carl Soderberg - Loui Eriksson

Daniel Paille - Gregory Campbell - Shawn Thornton

Defensive pairings

Zdeno Chara - Dougie Hamilton

Matt Bartkowski - Johnny Boychuk

Torey Krug - Kevan Miller

Goaltenders

Tuukka Rask
Chad Johnson

Surprisingly - perhaps stupidly - Desharnais says that he feels like the series momentum has started to swing into the favor of the Habs, even going so far as to call out Bruins' captain Zdeno Chara in an effort to give hope to his teammates and their fan base...

...and perhaps taking his turn to "poke the bear", as it were, trying to cause the Bruins' to lose focus - though his words have probably done nothing except make the feared defenseman's resolve a little stronger.

"He's an excellent defenseman; it's definitely not easy to play against him," Desharnais said, managing to sound magnanimous before delivering the punch line. "I think [Saturday] we found a way to get him tired a bit more and to pressure him."

"When you do that, he's just another defenseman."

Mother of God, what have you done?

Perhaps Desharnais is feeling a bit of detachment from the game after such a long season and a tough series against the Bruins, and if he didn't awaken the bear inside of each of the Bruins with his previous statement, he certainly did when trying to justify it.

"The longer the series goes the more we feel they're slowing down a little bit," he said. "It's tough on them, we're pressuring them. It's getting tougher and tougher, but we're getting our chances."

 Canadiens' Projected Lineup

Forwards

Max Pacioretty - David Desharnais - Brendan Gallgher 

Michael Bournival -Tomas Plekanec - Tomas Vanek

Rene Bourque - Lars Eller -Brian Gionta

Travis Moen - Danny Briere - Dale Weise

Defensive pairings

Josh Gorges - P.K. Subban

Andrei Markov - Alexei Emelin

Douglas Murray - Mike Weaver

Goaltenders

Carey Price

Peter Budaj

For his part, Montreal coach Michel Therrien seems to be out of ammo to motivate his troops - perhaps part of the reason that Desharnais is now trying to dislodge both of his skates from his mouth.  Therrien called out his top line before Game 5 on Saturday, saying that he felt they hadn't adjusted to intensity level that is required for the playoffs - but on Sunday afternoon he sounded resigned to just let things unfold as they should.

"Leadership comes from everyone, it doesn't come from one player," Therrien said when given the opportunity to single out his top line again. "I ask any player that puts on the uniform, every player that shows up to a game, they have to show leadership. Whether it's your first season or you've been in the League for 18 years, in my eyes you need to act like a leader."

Therrien's top line isn't the only line struggling in this series, as the Bruins "KIL" line of David Krejci, Jarome Iginla and Milan Lucic have had a rough go of it since the post-season began, as both the Red Wings and Canadiens have seemed to focus on trying to be physical with them, but it appears that the line is emerging from their collective funk as Lucic is hitting everything that moves and Iginla scored a slump-busting game winner in Game 4.

"I noticed that he was a whole different animal, and he was putting fear into their D," said defenseman Matt Bartkowski of Lucic "that's what he does."

"They started doing the right things," Bruins' coach Claude Julien said in response to questions regarding his top line. "We’ve seen them enough all year that when they play a straight line game and they play within their strength which is being big, strong and managing the puck well and hanging on to it in the offensive zone, that is when they become good."

"Although it wasn’t a five-on-five goal, it was nice to see Iggy score [Saturday] again and that line, you can see, is starting to turn the corner."

Lost in all of the hype and hoopla surrounding this rivalry is the calmness and confident demeanor of Julien - where the most controversial statement he's made to the media is that if his Bruins' play their game, they'll be fine.

Quiet arrogance?  Perhaps in the Canadiens' world it is seen as such, but in reality all Julien is doing is telling the truth - and if the Bruins do indeed play their game on Monday night, chances are very good that Game 6 will signal the end of Montreal's season.

"You know, I think we played a pretty complete game (in Game 5 on Saturday)," Bartkowski continued. "And I said that before the game, if we play a full 60 minutes and we don't really give them much - if we do that, we're fine."