Boston has a chance to step on the throats on the New York Rangers today. They say that a playoff series is never a real series until the home team loses, but I hope that doesn't happen until Game 3. Boston was the better team during Game 1, especially in overtime. Hank can come out and complain about his offense all he wants – it's not like Boston lit the scoreboard either.
If anything, Lundqvist should be mad at himself. That Krug goal was softer than a sneaker full of newborn baby shit.
But hey, I'm not one to complain about "the best goalie in the world" being as sharp as a Playschool kitchen knife. Like I said in the Game 1 recap, if the Bruins can take advantage of Hank being off, then they're in the driver's seat. He'll steal games, especially against a team where Braden Holtby and James Reimer stole games against them.
What really sucks about this whole thing is that it's a fucking matinee game. Fuck NBC and their love for afternoon hockey on the weekends. The good news is that the Bruins were actually good in afternoon games this year. In 9 games, Boston was 6-3, which is a complete turn around from their usual awful pre-6pm games.
But now the real questions start like:
- What Bruins team are we going to see?
- Will they have the Game 1 hustle or the Toronto Game 2 hustle?
- Where the hell is Tyler Seguin?
- Will the Bruins have a Red Bull IV attached to Jaromir Jagr?
- Will the Young Guns be be able to show up in consecutive games?
It's the same thing – the Bruins still haven't shown the ability to play consecutive 60 minute games. In fact, its debatable they have played one 60 minute hockey game this entire post season. I know the "Miracle on Causeway St" was unreal, but they were also down 4-1 and were playing like absolute dog shit.
I still think that Boston can take it. The Rangers aren't a very good hockey team, especially until Tortorella. They played timid in the first game, especially in the first period, like they were scared to give anything up. They never really attacked Boston, which is surprising because Boston's defense should have been easily exploitable given their youth.
But if New York wants to worry about collapsing in the defensive zone and blocking shots instead of actually putting shots on Rask, you won't hear me complaining. While we're on the topic of Rask, he wasn't particularly sharp in Game 1 either – especially on Stepan's goal.
But hey, you can't lean on your goalie in every game. Sometimes you need to actually need to do something for yourself, which was what the Bruins did on Wednesday night.
After the jump, the rest of the preview…
Bruins' Projected Lines
Milan Lucic – David Krejci – Nathan Horton
Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – Tyler Seguin
Rich Peverley – Chris Kelly – Jaromir Jagr
Shawn Thornton – Greg Campbell – Dan Paille
Zdeno Chara – Dougie Hamilton
Johnny Boychuk – Matt Bartkowski
Adam McQuaid – Torey Krug
Tuukka Rask
Anton Khudobin
Media
TV: NBCSN, RDS, TSN
Radio: 98.5 The Sports Hub
Online Feeds: HERE
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