The Bruins, on the other hand, were terrific yesterday. There were some mistakes, especially along the blue-lines. And turnover goals resulted. Apart from that the team played outstanding hockey. Krejci was strong on the boards and on the puck. Lucic and Horton were skating hard. Bergeron and Marchand continue to attack with ferocity. Chara dominates half the ice surface when he's out there, which is half the game. Rask made huge saves on Ranger breakaways.
Then there's the defensemen, who now have 10 goals in the playoffs. Boychuk scored his second of the series and third of the playoffs. And Torey Krug, who went to Michigan State in case NBC didn't mention that, scored his second in two games. In the first two playoff games of his life.
On most deep Stanley Cup runs, unexpected heroes like Krug show up randomly and contribute. Like Chris Kreider did for the Rangers last year. We were all worried about losing Seidenberg, Ference, and Redden. Now one of their replacements has 2 goals, an assist, and is +2.
Seguin has yet to get going. But he's so close. It's like an engine struggling to start on a cold morning. It revs and revs but doesn't turn over. Although once it gets going I think the floodgates will open and he'll score several goals in a stretch.
The third line is still struggling. And you can see the frustration in Peverley and Kelly. Kelly went after Dorsett and that's almost stupid aggressive. They're no longer dominating faceoffs like they did against Toronto. They're still not generating much offense. And they're making little mistakes like that offside when Seguin would have been open on the seem. It hasn't hurt the Bruins. They're not making negative plays, apart from Peverley's serial high-sticking. Hopefully they can contribute in a grinding, fourth line kind of way.
Up 2-0, the Bruins can't afford to get too comfortable. This is the time they seem to slip back into bad habits. They need to remember that New York lost their first two games to Washington on the road. And during the regular season they were a much better home team (16-6-2) than road team (10-12-2). New York is down, far from out, and there's no need to make it easy for them to get back into this series. Make them earn it.
Game 3 is Tuesday night at MSG.
Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Elise Amendola
