As far as I am concerned, if a Bruins player hits someone so hard they go right through the glass and several fans in the surrounding area get injured - as Milan Lucic did to Mike Van Ryn last night - then the Bruins deserve to win that game.Alas, hockey does not work that way.
Nor does it work in such a way that a team can under-perform, consistently scramble in the defensive zone, be beaten to open pucks, peel-off before being hit, and expect to win.
Last night, the Bruins again blew a two-goal lead to lose against the "lowly" Maple Leafs. The Leafs and Bruins now have identical records, but the teams do not seem to mirror each other in work effort. The Leafs outworked the Bruins on nearly every shift, getting better as the game went by.
In last night's game I was most struck by how passive the Bruins seemed. Largely the same team from last year, who doggedly checked the opposition in all three zones, creating opportunities by causing mistakes, last night's Bruins were instead handed their own game by the new-look Leafs - a team expected to miss the playoffs for a (record-setting) fourth straight year.
It was not pretty. And the recurring theme of blowing leads in the third period is an ominous sign as this team struggles for points and chemistry.
My only hope is that Coach Julien spends a significant amount of practice time in the coming days working on the Bruins anemic penalty kill, given that they could not stop the parade to the penalty box.
Hopefully last night's soft effort was an aberration, and the team will correct the path they are on.
2 comments:
dont forget that brutal hit wiseman laid on stajan. apparently nothing stalls a team more than two higlight reel hits?
my prediction for this leafs team has been that they're good enough to win just enough games to place 9th in the east which would make me sooo happy. to see them almost make the playoffs (but not) and miss out on the lottery.
but they're playing well, as we saw last night against the sens. do you think hartsburg watched the leafs/bruins game and said... 'we need to come out strong physically and set the tone with big hits' (like the bruins did)? because they seemed like eerily similar game plans. so if you can take anything out of the bruins loss at least they were better than the SENS at playing THAT game.
i know, its so true about the hitting not working out as predicted. sheesh.
the sens and bruins are often twin storylines. all it takes is a bad game for either team's goalie and the game's pretty much a write-off. same with problems with secondary scoring or D playing under their ability.
personally, i'm not making any predictions about where the leafs will finish, cuz boston could just as easily be in the same situation.
thanx for the comment.
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