Bruins 4 - Predators 3 SO
Being more of an Eastern Conference fan, I don't know too much about the Predators. You know Shea Weber is one of the better defenseman in the league and if it wasn't for Chara he'd have the hardest slap shot in the league. They also have a Finnish goaltender, Pekka Rinne, who was a Vezina trophy finalist last season and is also having a pretty good year currently. They have horribly ugly home sweaters and finally, gulp, ex-Senator of 10+ seasons Mike Fisher is married to Carrie Underwood. I hate myself for knowing that...
Although this game went to overtime then a shootout, I thought the B's outplayed the Predators, who lie 5th in the West. When your team is struggling, it seems have to work even harder to pull off those victories. When your team is on fire, you squeak a couple wins in there that you probably shouldn't have gotten. That's the beauty and the hell of sports.
What I was most happy to see was the play of Milan Lucic (team high 7 shots). Even before scoring the game tying goal with a hair over a minute left, I would've said he was the best B's player on the ice that game. When he moves his feet and gets that big ole frame of his moving around, he can be a very dangerous player. The key word in the statement is "when". If he lets his emotions get the best of him, then he makes stupid mistakes, but this game he played a solid north-south game.
For most of the season, the second line has played more like a number 1 line, and they now are rewarded with a promotion with the Horton out with a concussion and Krejci and Lucic trying to find their games. Patrice Bergeron continues to have a stellar season, winning 60% of the faceoffs he took, scoring a shorty and scoring in the shootout. To be fair, Brad Marchand did nearly all the work on Bergie's shorthanded snipe, pushing the puck up the ice and splitting two defenders before laying it off to the assistant captain. Proving to the Boston fan base that they have a right to be excited about his skills, Tyler Seguin scored a nifty shootout goal: coming in with speed, slowing down then deking the crap out of Rinne. I'm pretty sure Rinne is still looking for his jockstrap.
Can't complete this post without showing love to the fourth line. As much as I wanted Paille demoted at the beginning of the season, I'll eat my words and say that I couldn't imagine breaking up this line. The chemistry they have together is pretty awesome and the give n' go between Thornton and Paille was even more awesome.
Now on to a few low points:
- I thought Thomas looked pretty, dare I say, normal this game. The Fisher goal is one that Timmy saves 99.99% of the time. He also seemed to be fighting the puck at times during the game. With the homestretch not too far off in the future, I would really like to see Tuukka and Timmy step up there game. I just need to find a way to get Thomas to stop updating his facebook status...
- The "Master of Time and Space" has not only figured out a way to slow the game down, but he's also figured out how to completely disappear. Ever since fellow linemate Horton went down with a concussion, Krejci has been struggling to find his game. We know how great he can be, but we'd like to see the centerman who just received a nice raise play at a high level on a consistent basis.
Tonight and tomorrow will be a nice test for the Bruins. We have the #1 team in the Eastern Conference, NY Rangers, coming to down tonight and then we travel up to Montreal and try to take down the Habs in the Bell Centre. If the Bruins aren't focused, they could get embarrassed these two games. I don't care how poorly the Habs are playing this year, it's always an interesting contest between the two. It makes it even more difficult having played the Rangers the night before.
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