8 Golden Points: Game 7 vs Toronto

Bruins 6 - Maple Leafs 2

8 Golden Points:

1. As we saw in the later part of the 'Canes game (which I'd like to forget about), Julien went with a different combination of lines to start this game and boy does he look like a genius.  This looked like a completely different team out there.  6 goals from 6 different players.  The Maple Leafs came into this game red hot while the B's have been ice cold.  You would not have known that after watching this game.

2. I think I'm going to change the name of this segment to 7 Golden Points + Seguin.  Last night, instead of playing center on the top line, he slid over and played ring wing along with Kelly and Lucic.  How'd he respond?  A goal and 2 assists.  In 7 games Seguin is 2-6-8 +5.  As a team we've only scored 17 total goals and he's been apart of 8.  One of his best plays came at the end of a shift, he hustle backed on a defense, dove and broke up an odd man rush.  He's doing it all!  And I repeat... "THANK YOU KESSEL!!"

3. In my last 8 Golden Points, I mention Lucic and Horton were just baiting everyone into thinking they sucked and that they were going to start playing well real soon.  Well as always (or on rare occasion...whatever), I was right.  The best game of the year from these two.  When Looch plays that North-South hockey, he's nearly unstoppable.  Not too many players can push him off the puck.  Crunching Phaneuf early in the game was a good indicator of things to come. 

4. We saw the return of David Krejci last night.  It can't be long until he goes back up to the first line.  He is just so good with the puck on his stick.  As Jack would say, he's the master of time and space.  Although he didn't show up on the score sheet, he had a solid game and didn't appear to show any lingering affects from his "core" injury.  He also went 11 for 16 at the face off dot. 

5. The Bruins special teams showed up last night too.  The PK unit has been lights out all year long, shutting down the Leafs on all 4 of their power plays.  On the year the PK unit has killed off 28 of 32 power plays for 10th best in the league.  Not too shabby.  The PP unit also ate their Wheaties this morning, going 2 for 5 on the night.  As Bergeron said after the game, they kept it simple and didn't hesitate.

6. The defense looked very good tonight.  Chara had a monster game (goal and 2 assists), Ference had a monster first period (3 assists) and a monster open ice hit on Grabovski.  During the preseason there was a battle for the 7th defensemen between Bartkowski and Kampfer.  After watching the last two games, it's CLEAR Kampfer is the 7th defensemen.  The only bad was Siedenberg was a minus 1.  EEeek.

7.  For the first time this season, you didn't feel like our goalies had to be unbelievable in order for us to get the win.  Lucky for us, our goaltenders are unbelievable anyways.  It wasn't necessary for Thomas to be stellar tonight, but when he needed to make a save he did.  Stoning Grabovski on the break away and Steckel on the doorstep during the closing seconds of the second were huge, timely saves.  He almost had an assist as he threw one down the ice to Seguin that was called offsides. 

8. Phil Kessel... ahhh the trade that keeps on giving.  As a Bruins fan, you have to get a little giddy when you see him put up 0-0-0 -1 and Seguin puts up 1-2-3 +2.  It's just beautiful.  At the end of the month Golden Spokes will do a "Prospect Preview" and see how the talent pipeline is looking.  If you watched the game last night, you saw stats on how Jared Knight and Dougie Hamilton are tearing it up for their juniors teams in the OHL right now. 

Next up: Saturday vs San Jose Sharks (1-3-0)  Welcome back, Jumbo Joe.