Bruins maul Reimer, Leafs, take 2-1 series lead

When Nathan Horton goes top shelf, he really goes top shelf.

Horton responded to a Toronto power play goal, taking a pretty feed from Milan Lucic and snapping a shot from the low point that elevated past goalie James Reimer and lodged on top of the camera stanchion, giving the Boston Bruins a 3-1 lead on their way to a 5-2 stomping of the Maple Leafs in the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Monday night.

Adam McQuaid, Rich Peverley, Daniel Paille and David Krejci scored goals in addition to Horton, who scored his third goal in as many games as the Bruins avenged Saturday night's snooze-fest loss to the Leafs and now lead the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series 2-1, recapturing home ice advantage with the win.

For a split-second, everyone in the arena, commentators and players alike were scanning the ice for the puck, but the when the referee pointed at the back of the net and the entire Krejci line began celebrating, it was clear that the Bruins had dodged a major bullet.

Leading 2-0 in the second period, winger Tyler Seguin took a bad tripping penalty, and on the resultant power play Toronto's Jake Gardiner fired a rocket past screened Boston Goaltender Tuukka Rask to cut the Boston lead to just one goal and got the hyper-tense Air Canada Centre crowd and the throng of fans partying on the commons outside of the arena on their feet and back into the game...

...and then Horton sent them right back down in their seats 50 seconds later, taking the pass from Lucic right on his tape and reestablishing the two point margin.

Two minutes later with Seguin in the sin bin once again, serving a bench penalty for too many men on the ice, penalty killer Daniel Paille stole a pass in the neutral zone and skated uncontested for a breakaway shorty that increased the Bruins' lead to 4-1 at the second intermission, disbursing the crowd who now set their sights on Wednesday night's Game 4 once again in Toronto.

Not all was good for Boston, as their defense allowed an excessive 47 shots on goal, with Rask stopping 45 - many in spectacular fashion.  Conversely, Leafs' netminder James Reimer followed up his gem in goal on Wednesday night in Boston with a clunker in Toronto's first home playoff game in nearly a decade.

With time running out in the opening stanza and the teams taking to mugging each other on open ice, McQuaid took a pass on the high post and wristed a wicked drive past Reimer's glove side for the one goal lead.  The Bruins sniped Reimer from long range throughout the opening frame, particularly Johnny Boychuck who wound up and fired on goal several times, but it was McQuaid who finally burned them - the fourth goal of the series by a Bruins defenseman.

In the second period, Jaromir Jagr finally showed some teeth in the offensive zone, stealing a puck from Ryan O'Byrne behind Toronto's goal and deftly feeding Rich Peverley who snapped the puck past a helpless Reimer for the 2-0 Bruins lead, setting up the sequence of Gardiner's goal and Horton's answer.

Just 47 seconds into the third period, Phil Kessel scored for the Leafs to give the partisan crowd hope for a comeback, which Rask quashed with stellar goal tending to go along with aggressive, hard-hitting defense in front of him.  Krejci was rewarded for his efforts with an empty net goal to give the Bruins their final 5-2 tally.

It wasn't perfect and certainly not as dominating as Game 1's 4-1 win in Boston, but the Bruins were impressive in going into the Air Canada madhouse and shutting down the physical Maple Leafs on the scoreboard, though the scrappy Leafs kept hitting and forcing the issue until the final horn...

...and now the question looms: which Bruins' team shows up on Wednesday night, the fully involved lines of games one and three, or the napping Rumpelstiltskins of Game two?

With a chance to go up 3-1 in the series and possibly close out the series upon returning to Boston for Game 5, the smart money is on an aggressive Bruins' squad taking the crowd out of the game and taking the game to the Leafs.

Bruins Gamenight: Leafs Take Game 2 From Napping Bruins

The immensely talented Bruins' Jekyll and Hyde act has taken a turn to the dark side once again.

Wednesday night's 4-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs showed the hockey world how dominant the Boston Bruins could be - then Saturday night's Game 2 showed the hockey world just how inconsistent and bad they could be.

Toronto's James van Riemsdyk scores in the 3rd

It was about halfway through the 2nd period when there was a switch in intensity with the Toronto Maple Leafs.  The Bruins had just killed off a Rich Peverley delay of game infraction, and the game was turning chippy...

...when all of a sudden there was a blur of white sweaters getting to every puck, cutting off the passing lanes and laying big hits on the bloated and vulnerable Boston Bruins - and down 1-0 on a Nathan Horton goal, the Leafs turned on the jets, scoring two goals in the 2nd and two in the third and thoroughly manhandling the hometown Bruins 4-2 at TD Garden on Saturday evening.

After a scoreless first period, Horton started the scoring with his blade goal early in the second - and then it was nap time for the Bruins. Toronto's Joffrey Lupul scored two straight goals about 4 minutes apart as the Leafs took a 2-1 lead into the locker room after two.

Johnny Boychuck scored the other Boston goal, a wicked drive from the top of the right circle that was initially credited to Tyler Seguin on a redirection in front of Toronto goalie James Reimer, but replays showed that the puck slipped through the small scrum in front of the net...

That made the score 3-2 halfway through the final frame and seemed to awaken the Bruins from their sleepwalking state, as they started pelting Reimer, but it was too late - the damage was done.

The Leaf's netminder was on spot and stopped every Bruins' chance from thereon out.  Overall, Reimer stopped 39 of 41 as the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series now travels to Toronto for game 3, the two division rivals locked at one game a piece.

Tuukka Rask stopped 28 of 32 shots on goal, but yielding the four goals doesn't tell truthfully the solid game in net he had.  Several instances during the Bruins' nap between the middle of the second and third periods the Bruins defense left Rask on an island, once even allowing the Leafs to gang up on him and fire multiple shots in rapid-fire succession - Rask stopped all except the one that went over his shoulder and hit the crossbar of the goal.

Former Bruin Phil Kessel scored the game winner moments afterward.  Joffrey Lupul had two goals for the Leafs and James van Riemsdyk scored an insurance goal on an athletic spinning play to the right of a sprawling Rask, tucking the puck past the red line just under the goalie's skate with 3:07 left in regulation.

The Bruins' issues of clearing the defensive zone and staying engaging for a full 60 minutes has dogged this team all season - but now it's the post-season, and it's going to take a more consistent effort that what Boston showed on Saturday night to advance for a chance at the Cup.

Hibernating offense awakens, Bruins bag leafs in Game 1

Now, where did that come from?

The Boston Bruins limped into the post-season on the heels of a 6 games in 9 days stretch that became even more congested by the authorities literally shutting down the city, causing two games that had to be made up...

...and the Bruins blew seven of nine down the stretch, never scoring more than three goals and not giving themselves nor their fans any sense that things would be any different when Boston opened an Eastern Conference quarterfinals series with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night.

But with a couple of days off to get their minds and bodies headed in the same direction, the Bruins took the ice at TD Garden and beat the upstart Leafs like they stole something.

Wade Redden and Nathan Horton scored goals in the 1st period to give the Bruins the lead, then David Krejci and Johnny Boychuck each scored in the second to make it stick as the Bruins routed a Maple Leafs' squad that was tasting the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade by a final tally of 4-1.

"We just self-destructed," Toronto coach Randy Carlyle said. "We didn't do a lot of things right. I've never seen so many people fall down with nobody around them with situations with our group. Like we said, we know this going to take more than an ordinary effort, and tonight it wasn't good enough effort."

After Toronto forward James van Riemsdyk gave the Leafs an early 1-0 lead, Redden tied it with a blast from the top of the left circle, then moments later tried the same thing from the other side, this time Horton getting a stick on the puck to deflect it past Leafs' netminder James Reimer for what proved to be the gamer.

The second period goals were excellent in style points, Krejci gathering in a loose puck in the crease and snapping a spinner past Reimer, then Boychuck launched a wicked wrister from just inside the blue line that beat the embroiled Toronto goalie, who stopped 36 of 40 shots as Boston kept the heat on all night.

Bruins' stopper Tuukka Rask faced just 20 shots, handling 19 of them, some in spectacular fashion.

Game 2, scheduled for Saturday night at TD Garden, seems to carry an air of desperation for a Toronto team that has lost six straight to the Bruins in that building.

"That was a tough one to lose, especially with the start we had," Toronto's Nazem Kadri said. "Undisciplined turnovers played a factor, as well. We are just killing ourselves when we do those types of things."

The Maple Leafs had better get it together before the faceoff on Saturday night, or the series will be headed back to Toronto with the home town Leafs in a 2-0 hole, inexperience an excuse that's not going to hold up with their rabid fanbase.

"It's a new experience for a lot of guys," van Riemsdyk said. "That's a telltale sign how different the level is and how things can come back to bite you."

On Wednesday night, it was the Bruins doing the biting - with their new-found offensive prowess...

Freefalling Bruins spanked by Flyers 5-2

The Boston Bruins throttled the Florida Panthers on Sunday afternoon at TD Garden in downtown Boston.  Yawn.

Not that it was boring, quite the contrary in fact.  But the Bruins are supposed to do that, beat teams like the Panthers - and like tonight's opponent, the Broad Street Bullies.  But for the second half of this abbreviated season, that hasn't always been the way things have worked out.

Every team has "Those" games - the ones where it just isn't there, can't get in sync, the flow of the game never coming, and Boston has had a few, but the majority of their moments have been due to a protracted case of sleepwalking resulting in sloppy passing and loss of focus...

...and tonight was one of those nights.  The Bruins skated into Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center with a razor thin lead in the Northeast Division over the hated Montreal Canadiens, but after the Flyers opened up a 5-2 can of buttwhoopin' on them, Boston limped out the way they came in, with yet another loss and a rash of fresh teeth marks.

Look, the Boston Bruins are one of the most talented teams in the National Hockey League. There is no subjectivity, no ambiguity. They know it, their fans know it and their opponents know it - and the only thing that could possibly bring the big, bad Bruins down is if they did it to themselves.

And they do it to themselves a lot - enough in fact that it's mind-boggling that their 3-0 win over the Panthers on Sunday gave them sole possession of first place in the Northeast Division and, subsequently, the second seed in the Eastern Conference over the team that started this whole sleepwalking through games thing for the Bruins in the first place...

...Boston Bruins fans can look back at their team's 4-3 loss to the Canadiens way back at the beginning of March and know that the words that spouted out of Claude Julien's mouth about the Canadiens cheating were the impetus to to their pedestrian second half.

On the night of March 3rd, the Bruins were locked in a superb battle the Canadiens, stomping on them like a rival should, when the wheels fell off five and a half minutes into the final frame and Montreal rallied from down 3-2 to take the contest, helped in large part by 17 minutes worth of Sin Bin for Boston defenseman Zdeno Chara...

...who had some choice words - and fists - for the Habs on the ice, but left it there.  Julien had no outlet.  It's not as if he could go pull a Happy Gilmore and beat the snot out of their coaching staff to soothe the savage loss, so he accused the Canadiens of "Embellishment" - a playground tactic of tattling on the bully that just took your milk money. 

A move that was met by laughter and jeers from the fans all the way up to the commissioner's office, and one that caused the Bruins to lose focus on the prize and put it squarely on their next meeting with Montreal...which they lost in a similar fashion, and so on and so on.

So with both Boston and Montreal in tailspins, both lost on Tuesday evening - The Habs getting taken to the mat by the Devils and the Bruins spanked by the Flyers for their sixth loss in the last seven games, and the Bruins inconceivable and tenuous grip on the division lead remains, but by the thinnest of margins.

Scott Hartnell scored on Anton Khudobin just 1:40 into the game, but Boston came back 3 minutes later to tie the game on Wade Redden's third goal of the season - and it remained that way until 11:24 of the 2nd frame, when Matt Read netted the tie breaker, then Oliver Lauridsen scored the game winner just seven seconds later.

Needless to say, Khudobin didn't have his best game in net, stopping just 14 of 17 shots he faced before being lifted for Rask after allowing the two goals in seven seconds.  Flyers' netminder Steve Mason was solid in the crease, stopping 39 of 41 Bruins opportunities.

The race for the Northeast Division title and the second overall seed is going to come down to the last week of the season, and one thing is for sure: either the Canadiens or Bruins is going to win it, whether they want to or not.

NHL Officials postpone Bruins game in response to bombing

The National Hockey League has postponed tonight's game between the Boston Bruins and the Ottawa Senators, scheduled for tonight at TD Garden in downtown Boston.

The postponement is in response to today fatal bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  Two people are confirmed dead and many dozens of other were wounded, some critically as two separate bombs were detonated seconds apart at and near the finish line of the annual race.

The NHL released the following announcement:

The game between the Ottawa Senators and Boston Bruins scheduled for tonight at TD Garden has been postponed, the National Hockey League announced today.

The game will be rescheduled. The date and time will be announced at a later date.

The National Hockey League wishes to express its sympathy to all affected by the tragic events that took place in Boston earlier this afternoon.

No make up date has been announced.

How many times can the Boston Bruins defense leave their goaltenders out on an island before it come back to bit them in their hind parts?

With Tuukka Rask in net on Saturday night, the answer was four times - but it very well could have been twice as many, but the Finnish born net minder stopped

Boston Sportsnight: Celtics' slide, Sox' closer, Bruins' passion all in question

Tough night for Boston sports fans.  Really tough.

The Celtics lost again as they slump towards the playoff and an eventual 1st round exit, the Sox are in full-cringe when closer Joel Hanrahan takes the mound and the Patriots' Alfonzo Dennard was perhaps spending his last night as a free man - but the most worrisome development on the Boston Sports' scene is what happened with 4:50 left in the second period of the Bruins 5-4 win over the host New Jersey Devils...

...Brad Marchand is not innocent on the ice by any means - after all, he wasn't referred to as the "Little ball of hate" by President Barrack Obama for nothing.

He is as intense a player as you will see, but his game is far more than raw emotion - as witnessed by his status as goal and points leader for a Boston Bruins team that now lead the Northeast Diviison of the NHL's Eastern Conference, so he is more than an agitator, for which he takes his share of both hits and criticism. 

But when New Jersey Devils' defenseman Anton Volchenkov leveled Marchand with an elbow to the head Wednesday night, the most alarming thing about it wasn't the hit itself, and it wasn't the fact that Volchenkov appeared to directly target Marchand's head that was disturbing - it was Marchand's teammate's response to the hit - or lack thereof - that is drawing question.

Hey, it's hockey.  Some guys are goons and set out to hurt people.  Most are good, tough players who give their all to help their teams win, and almost all will come to the aid of a fallen teammate - but the only one who came to Marchand's aid was newly acquired linemate Jaromir Jagr, who appeared more shocked by the Bruins' lack of response than he was by the hit itself.

Hell, even Volchenkov tried to keep Marchand from hitting the ice face first after hitting him and then even after Jagr shoved him into the boards from behind.

What does this tell Jagr about his new team?  What does it tell Bruins' fans about the chemistry of their unit?  Most of all, what does it tell Marchand about his teammates?  That they're not going to have his back?

The Bruins may have held on to win last night's game, but in the process may have lost some respect.

And in hockey, respect is everything.  So be prepared, Bruins, you just opened yourselves up for a little roughhousing from every goon and enforcer out there - they are going to test your will and determination and go after your scorers, and will continue to do so until you prove that you are passionate enough about your employ to come to the defense of one of your own.

And that's a bad way to skate into the playoffs, no matter your seed...

Update: In response to the elbow to the head on Brad Marchand, the NHL has suspended New Jersey Devils' Anton Volchenkov for four games, suspension to commence immediately.