Second Round Bitch

Being at TD Garden last night was almost like a religious experience, except instead of worshiping some invisible man in the sky we were worshiping a man with the last name Satan when he scored Boston’s fourth goal.

When you are a fan of a team, you want to believe your team always has a chance. No matter how bad they are, how many injuries they have… you want to believe they can go the distance.

That faith was shaken when the Bruins decided they hated winning in January. They put the nail in their own coffin, we thought, back on March when they were softer than an 80  year old man’s penis.

But for those of you who stuck with them, through it all, you were rewarded last night.

Boston hasn’t won anything yet. A first round series win means nothing in the grand scheme of things. But a second round berth, in our minds, makes this season a success. Every NHL team suffers injuries, but the injury bug and the hockey gods were especially brutal to the Bruins this season.

They went into the playoffs without two of their better defenseman and without their best offensive player. As one Sportshub caller put it, Matt Cooke turned every Boston game into Marc Savard bobble-head night. They were facing the supposedly invincible Ryan Miller. Lot of things going against them.

But this Bruins team proved they want to win. They don’t want to use excuses like injuries or bad luck. They just want to crush you. They treated last night as an elimination game and came out the victors.

It certainly wasn’t pretty. Wideman reminded everyone why he was getting booed at home. Ryder decided he liked passed to the opposing team for fun and the defense decided Rask was bored and gave Vanek a free shot. But they won. They advanced. They got to the same round they got to last year, despite an impotent offense and a flood of Lindy Ruff tears.

Now their biggest enemy is themselves. These Bruins have shown a tendency to be complacent. They obviously didn’t handle success well at the beginning of the year, and slept through Game 5. If they have any shot at all to win it all, they need that killer instinct they had in Game 6. Unless that Cup is raised above their heads, they should treat every game like it is the last of the season. Win or go home. Not just in elimination games, but in every game.

And not only did they win, but now they get Marc Savard back. Their best weapon, assuming he is 100%, is coming onto a team that is over flowing with confidence and scored enough to beat Ryan Miller. And with the possibility of a match-up with Pittsburgh… Marc Savard just might get his revenge.