You can explain the Bruins' 5-4 OT loss on Friday as a close game won by a desperate Flyers team. I characterized it as a wakeup call. But the Bruins apparently hit the snooze button. They didn't hit much else after that.
Trent Whitfield can teach his teammates something. That's an odd statement, but he was the ONLY Bruin who consistently fought hard, won battles, skated strongly, and didn't fuck up. Dennis Wideman relapsed into regular season mode. Michael Ryder was useless. Blake Wheeler also returned to his regular season form. Shawn Thornton didn't play physical (all he's good for in the playoffs). Boychuk and Chara failed to get a shot on goal. Lucic bungled and bobbled the puck.
I'll give credit to the Flyers for playing relatively mistake free, being physical yet disciplined, and for Ville Laino having the game of his life. But they beat a Bruins team that wasn't motivated, wasn't disciplined, and should be ashamed of themselves, except for Trent Whitfield.
The Bruins allowed 9 power plays. They only managed 23 shots on net. And when Brian Boucher got hurt and career backup Michael Leighton replaced him, the Bruins seemingly avoided shooting the puck. They managed 1 shot on him in his first 6 minutes on the ice. Meanwhile, the Flyers got 31 shots on Rask, but had 21 blocked by the Bruins.
Blocked shots are great, but when you're blocking so many, it's indicative of an opponent being allowed to spend far too much time in your zone.
The Bruins lost battles everywhere. Races for pucks, physical battles for loose pucks, battles for position in the crease. They had occasional stretches of intense play, but these were the exceptions, not the rule.
If the Bruins lose this series, I want Claude Julien fired. And Michael Ryder banished.
The 2010 Stanley Cup Finals will not have the Detroit Red Wings in them. But they may still have the Penguins.
PHILADELPHIA 5, BOSTON 4 - OT (Boston leads series 3-1)
The Bruins never did enough to win this game, sort of like how the Flyers played in Games 1 and 2. Philly got Simon Gagne back. He got 7 shots on net, including the last shot of the game. As a Bruins fan, you have to worry. Philly has momentum, and have the ferocious motivation of a team pushed to the brink. Mark Stuart returned for the B's, registering about 10 minutes of ice time and a -2. He simply wasn't up to speed.
PITTSBURGH 2, MONTREAL 1 (Pittsburgh leads series 3-2)
M.A. Fleury stood on his head in this one, stopping 32 shots. Mike Cammileri broke up the shutout with 0:31 left in the 3rd. Kris Letang and Sergei Gonchar scored for Pittsburgh. The good news for Montreal is that Crosby and Malkin haven't really gotten going in this series. The bad news for Montreal is that Crosby and Malkin haven't really gotten going in this series.
SAN JOSE 2, DETROIT 1 (Sharks WIN series 4-1)
Joe Thornton must have been hypnotized to think it was the regular season. He had a goal and an assist in this clinching win. A key to San Jose's success was shutting down Zetterberg, who had 6 goals and 5 assists against Phoenix, but only 1 goal and 3 assists in this series. This matches the farthest San Jose has ever advanced in the playoffs. They lost to the Flames in the '04 Conference Finals. This is the earlies Detroit has been eliminated since 2006.
VANCOUVER 4, CHICAGO 1 (Blackhawks lead series 3-2)
Unlikely hero Kevin Bieksa scored twice and had an assist. He had 3 goals all season for the Canucks, Roberto Luongo stopped 29 of 30 shots. But Vancouver still needs more production out of their forwards, particularly the Sedins. Daniel has 1 goal and 2 assists in this series, Henrik has done better with 2 goals, and 4 assists.
Tonight's games:
7pm: Philadelphia @ Boston - NESN (Bruins lead series 3-1)
7pm: Pittsburgh @ Montreal - Versus (Penguins lead series 3-2)
After a 4 game sweep over the lowly Angels, reality returned to Boston in the form of the New York Yankees. And while some of the few remaining uber-optimists out there might gleam a slice of hope from Sunday's 9-3 win, the fact remains that the Red Sox simply aren't in the Yankees league this season.
The Sox are now 1-8 against the Yankees and Rays. And it's not as if many of these games have been close. And it's not as if the Sox are just one or two adjustments away from being on par with the clubs in New York and St. Petersburg.
Josh Beckett has lousy Aprils. I gave him a pass, but it was only good for one month. It's now well into May, and his 7.46 ERA sounds more like a type of Boeing jet than that of a $17 million/year pitcher.
Then there's all that run prevention. Adrian Beltre is hitting (2/4 with 2 doubles and 2 RBI Sunday night), but he's not fielding. Only the Pirates and Diamondbacks have allowed more runs this season than the Red Sox.
And for every flash of brilliance David Ortiz shows, there's a long pause of darkness and disappointment. He's like Haley's Comet, putting on a great show once and awhile, but for the most part, he doesn't show up. While had had a ground-rule RBI double last night, he's still below the Mendoza Line.
The good news is that Jon Lester has settled down from a struggling start. He's only allowed 3 earned runs in his last 4 starts (27.2 innings, 0.98 ERA), and his last 3 outings have been Quality Starts.
The Sox have a rough stretch ahead of them: 16 straight against teams with winning records, 11 of those on the road, 8 against division leaders, 2 against the Yanks, 3 with the Rays, 2 with the Twins, and 3 in Philly.
Sox host the Jays tonight at 7 on NESN+. Lackey vs. Brandon Morrow, who scored 20 goals for the Dallas Stars this season.
LeBron James' elbow is fine. Anyone who believes otherwise either works for ESPN, or is LeBron James himself. I'm not accusing him of knowingly faking it. In his own egotistical mind, he's convinced he's hurt.
Rajon Rondo isn't hurt either. But he did put the hurt on the Cavs yesterday evening. 29 points, 18 boards, 13 assists. It was truly one of the best individual efforts in Celtics' postseason history. Which is quite an exultation.
Rondo's offense was needed, as Paul Pierce failed to show up. He scored 9 points, and had a mediocre night on the defensive side of the ball. Ray Allen was 1/8 from beyond the arc, but did wind up with 18 total points. He attempted 21 field goals. KG also had 18.
Tony Allen contributed some huge minutes off the bench. He scored 15, and was a force on defense. He also had 5 rebounds. He was a key player down the stretch.
This series is one of the weirder I've ever seen. Game 5 Tuesday night in Cleveland.
In the pre-game show, the Versus guy was talking about how B's coach Claude Julien didn't want his team to say, or even think about the word "sweep" during their morning skate and practice. Are you kidding me? While I understand not saying that word to the press, don't you want to win, Claude? And if you win Friday night, isn't than an S-W-E-E-P sweep!?! So why are you haranguing your players, and telling them to not think about winning?
Claude Julien teams are always technically sound, and typically well-behaved yet still aggressive groups. But they don't kill. They wound, then hope that their prey dies. They lack the killer instinct. And this deficiency was on display Friday night.
Give credit to Philly, though. It's almost impossible to sweep (oh God, I used the S-word, Claude) a team out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The best hockey team in the World is the one facing elimination. They also benefited from the return of Simon Gagne, who scored the game-winner and peppered Rask with 7 shots.
But I remember when I was a kid, letting my dog out into the backyard in the morning to do his business. He was a beagle, bred for tracking and hunting. He caught the scent of a rabbit, somehow trapped within the confines of my backyard fence. He barked, he barked, he barked, then he chased after his prey, caught it, then clamped his paw down on the its neck. Then my dog looked at me, with a puzzled, confused kind of look, as if to ask me "What do I do now?" My dog Spunky was a tracker and hunter, but not a killer. He could catch a rabbit, but couldn't kill it. He was simply never shown or trained how to kill. We should have named him Bruin.
So many individual battles were lost in this game. The Bruins were somewhat fortunate to take a 1-0 lead, and fortunate to end the 1st period tied 1-1. Rask and the defensemen were excelling above and beyond.
Then the Flyers deservedly took a 3-1 lead. It was suddenly wake-up time for the Bruins. But seriously, the Bruins have needed more wake-up calls this season than a hotel hosting a narcoleptic convention. It's the fucking playoffs, who needs a reminder that this shit is serious?
The Bruins made it 3-2 in the 2nd, thanks to a freakish kind of goal. The puck bounced off Philly's lively backboards, then Boucher couldn't properly smother it, and he seemed to nudge it between his own legs and into the net. Ryder got credit for the score. But while the finish was good fortune, the activity preceding it was good play. The Bruins won battles along the boards, got a puck near the net, and it found its way in.
The B's tied it in the 3rd with a Power Play goal. The PP unit had struggled to do anything all night. But Philly had consistently surrendered easy entry. So Savard entered the zone, with Wideman flanking him. He passed to Wideman off the boards, which deceived the Flyer defending both of them. Savard drew that guy's attention, and Wideman had time and space to launch a shot. He did so, Lucic tipped it, and it was a 3-3 game.
Then the Bruins fell asleep again. They went the next 10+ minutes without getting a shot on goal. Eventually, Philly's relentless forecheck earned a takeaway, Pronger launched a shot, and it was deflected by Lano, into the net. 4-3 Philly.
The magic of Mark Recchi took over with 32 seconds remaining. With the goalie pulled Savard lost a draw, then Bergeron recovered the loose puck, found Wideman, who passed back to Bergy, who shot. With Lucic in the crease, Recchi was free to drift to the side of the net, where he slipped in the rebound to force overtime.
But what did the Bruins really do to win in OT? Well, Paille, Bergeron, and Recchi almost combined for a breakaway goal. Wheeler failed to handle a puck in the slot on a power play. And that's it. But for the most part, the near 15 minute overtime was a shooting gallery on Rask. You have to score to win in overtime.
The Bruins didn't do much to deserve to lose, but they did nothing to deserve to win.
This team needs to wake the fuck up. Right now. In boxing, when you get an opponent on the ropes, you don't ease up and hope the judges give you the decision. In football, when you're up by 17 points, you don't run the ball 3 times then punt, hoping the clock runs out. In baseball, when you're up by 6 runs, you don't swing at everything and hope your bullpen holds the lead. In NASCAR, when you have a 10 second lead on everyone else, you don't keep it in 2nd gear and cruise around.
You have to kill.
Up 3 games to 0, the Bruins were in a position to be aggressive, NOT to be conservative. They had the liberty to take chances, pressure the Flyers, punish them even. Instead, they eased up. They showed some serious fight at the end of the game, coming from 3-1 down to force an OT. But they never implemented their game on the Flyers. They never made the Flyers toe the line and play Boston Bruins Hockey.
It might change tonight in Boston. Rather, it should change tonight. The Bruins will once again have last-change in Game 5. And maybe a night full of wake-up calls will have the same effect as a caseload of Red Bulls.
This series isn't over. There's a reason that 2 of the 3 teams that have rebounded from 3-0 series deficits to win have been NHL teams. And to be frank, if the B's lose Game 5, but win in 6 or 7, they've failed. They have a worn out and bedraggled team, stretched thin by injuries, and they could use a few extra days off. But you have to earn that reward.
MONTREAL 3, PITTSBURGH 2 (series tied 2-2)
Crosby and Malkin have combined for 1 goal and 4 assists in this series. Pittsburgh needs more than that. But perhaps Jaroslav Halak deserves credit for that. Since his shaky Game 1, he's only allowed 4 goals, stopping 94 of 98 shots (.959 SV%). There's nothing scarier than a Montreal team propelled by a hot goalie.
DETROIT 7, SAN JOSE 1 (Sharks lead 3-1)
If Detroit goes down, it won't be without a fight. Johan Franzen scored a natural hat-trick (3 goals in a row, without anyone else scoring in between them) in the 1st period. He also had an assist in that period, setting a Stanley Cup record for most points in a period. He scored again in the 3rd, and had an assist in the 2nd. So that's 4 goals and 2 assists. And yes, he was awarded the #1 Star.
Tonight's games:
7pm: Boston @ Philadelphia - Versus (Bruins lead series 3-0)
9:30pm: Chicago @ Vancouver - Versus (Blackhawks lead series 2-1)
Saturday's games:
7pm: Montreal @ Pittsburgh - Versus (Series tied 2-2)
10pm: Detroit @ San Jose - Versus (Sharks lead series 3-1)
Finishing a 4 game sweep of the Angels last night, the Sox are once again over .500. And while outscoring the Angels 36-16 in 4 games makes for an enjoyable week, the opponent was hardly a worthy one. That being said, the Sox need to take 4 from teams struggling. They need to take at least 2 of 3 from the Orioles. Anything less is truly embarrassing.
Daisuke went 5.1 innings, allowing 5 runs off 5 hits and 3 walks. He threw 92 pitches, 58 for strikes. It was much better than his first start, but it still had the makings of a typical Matsuzaka outing: lots of pitches, lots of nibbling, not enough innings.
Victor Martinez hit his 2nd homerun of the season, also had a double, and knocked in 4.
The Sox have a much more important and revealing test ahead, as they play the Yankees 3 times this weekend. Hughes vs. Beckett tonight.
Everybody'd been saying (including myself), that despite being up 2-0, the Bruins could very easily be down 2-0. But was this really true? The Flyers may have had victory in their sights, but they've never been close to having it within their grasps. In other words, while the Flyers barely lost Games 1 and 2, they never came that close to winning them, either. In the nearly 200 minutes of hockey played in this series, the Flyers have led for 99 seconds.
I didn't see the game live last night, which might be why I'm alive today. I had to work, so I DVRed it, got updates via text, so when I watched it, I knew the Bruins had won 4-1. And thank God I knew that, because otherwise I may have died of a heart attack.
The Flyers got 35 shots on net. 21 more shots were blocked by the Bruins, including 5 by Boychuk alone.
Tuukka Rask was unreal. His balance of poise combined with spry athleticism was perfectly epitomized in a first period save he made on van Riemsdyk (you know you watch a lot of hockey when you can correctly spell that name on your first try). He made an excellent read on the puck, positioned himself perfectly, but was also able to burst across the crease and stop the shot. He's got Wes Welker moves in an even more confined space.
But it is a team game, and while Rask has carried a great deal of the burden, he's not alone. The Bruins function as a team, deploying multiple layers on offense and defense. A great demonstration of this came early in the 2nd. Hunwick pinched in an effort to extend an offensive possession, but it wound up giving the puck to Philly, and keying a 3-on-2 breakaway. But Boychuk defended one pass, and Satan speedily lodged himself in between Flyers to defend against the 2nd pass. So Dan Carcillo was left with one option: the wide angle shot. Rask read the play, and not only stopped the puck, he steered the rebound in a ricochet toward the other side of the ice, instead of letting it bounce into the stampede of Flyers bearing down on him.
He straddles and adheres to those two posts like a stripper.
Rask was also the best penalty-killer. The Bruins killed all 4 of Philly's power plays. An excellent PK unit is a huge asset in the playoffs. It allows you to be aggressive, like when Ference cross-checked Carcillo in the 1st. It allows you to make mistakes without paying dearly for them, like the two delay of game penalties in the 3rd.
The Bruins have killed 30 of their opponents' 32 power plays. That's 93.4%.
Rask wasn't alone on the PK. The Four Horsemen (Chara, Wideman, Boychuk, Hunwick) had stellar nights. Chara was voted 1st star by the Philadelphia press box. Wideman seemed to be all over the place. Boychuk had those 5 blocks. And Hunwick was no slouch. Neither was Andrew Ference,
It was Ference who was partially to blame for Philly's 1st goal. Adam McQuaid lost the puck at the offensive blue-line, Arron Asham and Claude Giroux broke 2-on-1 against Ference, who failed to do anything to disturb Giroux's pass to Asham. 1-0 Philly.
But that lead, their first of the series, lasted for 99 seconds.
Most goals are scored by luck. A good bounce, a juicy rebound, a fortunate placement of a stick or even a skate. But while the end is lucky, they all start off with good play, which creates a scene in which a lucky bounce can result in a goal.
The Bruins' first goal was conceived when Wideman and Hunwick were able to win some battles behind their own net, then key a breakout. They brought the puck up, then Lucic and Satan were able to forecheck and force a faceoff in the offensive zone. After a faceoff loss, the Bruins got control, and Ryder shot at Boucher, who gloved it at his feet. Another faceoff, and another loss. But Savard was able to find the loose puck, skated toward the corner, creating an ideal passing lane with Hunwick on the other side of the ice and at the blue-line. Hunwick couldn't shoot straight on net as a Flyer would have blocked it, so he shot intentionally wide. Wheeler was able to get his stick on it, and angle the puck into the net.
The Bruins soon scored again, and would lead for 54 minutes and 15 seconds. That's 3,255 seconds.
Richards dropped the boom on David Krejci near center ice. But the puck drifted forward. Lucic won a race to it, crossed the offensive blue-line, then turned inward, allowing a streaking Satan to storm into the zone, already past two Flyers. Satan devilishly dragged the puck and slipped a backhanded shot by Boucher.
The B's 3rd goal was also a lucky finish with an effort-based birth. Hunwick drew a tripping penalty because of his hustle and skating ability exercised while attempting to touch-up on a would-be-icing call. Chara blasted a shot, then the rebound pinballed off Pronger, then Wheeler, then dropped at the heel of Recchi's stick. Easy goal. A garbage goal, perhaps, but it still smelled so very sweet.
Unfortunately, Richards' clean yet brutal hit on Krejci knocked him out of the game, and eventually into the hospital. Krejci skated off under his own power, but nobody outside the Bruins' inner-sanctum has any idea what the injury might be, let alone how long Krejci might be out. Krejci has 4 goals and 4 assists in these playoffs, has registered a point every game this series, and has a 4 game point streak.
The Bruins also lost defenseman Adam McQuaid. The loss of Krejci hurts more, but there's very little left in the well at defenseman for the Bruins. Boychuk and Wideman were both played over 28 minutes last night. Chara over 25. Hunwick over 22.
So the big picture, great news is that the Bruins are up 3-0 over the Flyers. Only twice in NHL history ('42 Maple Leafs, '75 Islanders) and thrice in all sports history ('04 Red Sox) has a team comeback from a 3-0 deficit to win a series. So while the Flyers aren't dead, their coffins are being assembled.
