Call the Mounties, Tuukka Rask Robbed People. BRUINS WIN GAME 1 2-1.

I need a cold shower. And a beer. And a cold shower beer.

I just. Wooooooooo.

That hockey game wasn’t meant to be won the Boston Bruins. Everything was there for them to lose that game. They go down 1-0 in a period where they put zero shots on net. They looked disheveled, lost and sloppy. Craig Anderson played a phenomenal hockey game and made saves that no goalie had the right to make.

But Tuukka Rask had his big boy pants out and stole a hockey game for the Boston Bruins. You hear that guys? Tuuka Rask stole a big game for the Boston Bruins.

With Carlo, Krug and Krejci not playing in this game, many believed that the Bruins were going to struggle to break Ottawa’s trap. Looking back at the series, we all believed that they were going to struggle to score goals and when you look at Game 1’s – they usually go to the home team.

They were playing a kid directly out of college. They had a slew of players who were playing in their first ever NHL postseason game.

They weren’t supposed to win, but they did.

The Bruins came out in the third period and battled like Bruins teams of yore. They scratched, clawed, hit, survived injuries and found a way to steal a game in Ottawa. Boston had no right winning that hockey game, but they accomplished what every visiting team tries to do: split the series.

They’ve already done that in the very first game.

It just.

Here we go. A big ole Tuukka Rask humpfest. No matter what you think about Tuukka Rask – his makeup, his style, his talent – for one night you were wrong. Tuukka Rask was the reason why the Bruins had a fighting chance early in this hockey game.

Ottawa was peppering him and he controlled his rebounds. The Senators could have easily went up 2-0 or 3-0 in the first period. I can’t state enough how important Rask was in this win.

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“Hey, the positive here is that Marchand will at least be rested” – Me on Marchand’s two game suspension at the end of the season.

First off, what kind of cunt quotes himself? Pez does.

While the last two games were important in terms of seeding in the playoffs, a rested Marchand may actually be more important. I know that’s a foolish thing to say after the Bruins win the first game of the first round, but think about it. The Marchand/Bergeron/Pastrnak line was red hot the entire game. The funny thing is that you’d never guess in the shot column.

That line only accounted for three shots out of Boston’s. Given the amount of chances Pastrnak had, I was shocked to see a goose egg for him in the SOG column. Remember, he hit the post and that doesn’t count as a shot on goal.

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So that line does what it does best: score goals. Pastrnak has the option to shoot or pass in the slot and he opts for the latter. Bergeron puts the shot on goal and Marchand goes towards the net.

Good things happen when you go towards the net.

Fucking guy is an assassin. If the Bruins are going anywhere this postseason, it’ll be on the back of Brad Marchand and Tuukka Rask.

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I swear, I’ll have a new Charlie McAvoy photoshop soon. It’s getting late and I really want to finish this for you guys. McAvoy played in his first every NHL game tonight and did not disappoint. In the first period, the Bruins threw him out on the first powerplay unit and it looked like he’s been there forever. He’s a 19 year old with the poise of a 19 year veteran.

More importantly, he looked like he belonged. While he made a couple of mistakes, he logged a ton of minutes (24:11, second ever to Zdeno Chara among players in their first playoff game) and wasn’t rattled.

If this is a sign of what’s to come for McAvoy, Boston crushed that pick and it makes me very happy because I was ecstatic when they drafted him.

—

Frankie V – welcome to the show kid. Vatrano, another guy playing in his first ever postseason game – tied the hockey game for the Bruins.

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I’ve written about it before that if you give me one guy on this Bruins team to shoot around the dots – I’m talking Frank Vatrano 9/10 times. The kid has a laser and shows it tonight. Anderson may have been screened, but that puck had some serious eyes.

It would be wonderful for Vatrano to get out of his rut and climb back into the player he was a month or so ago when he was scoring at will. If Cassidy decides to stagger the Marchand/Bergeron/Pastrnak line and Vatrano heats up, it’ll once again give the Bruins three lines of scoring threats. That’s a dangerous thing in a best of seven series.

—

This tweet from the Senators:

The Bruins failed to record a shot on goal in the second period.

Can someone in the advanced stat community tell us if that is good?

— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) April 13, 2017

Maybe wait until the game is over to act like a pretentious pile of hemorrhoids?

David Krejci was a last minute scratch. Hopefully it is something he can overcome for Game 2. Injuries continue to plague the Bruins. Colin Miller took a knee-on-knee hit…with no call…and Miller left the game, returned, then left again. There is no update on him, but if you’re playing the home version of this game, the Bruins could be without:

Krejci, Colin Miller, Carlo, Krug.