Plenty of things to like about the Bruins' Game 3 win over Carolina. They seemed to rally around surprise goalie Jaroslav Halak. There were stretches of this game that they outright dominated. Charlie Coyle looked stellar.
But there was still lots of room for improvement. I'm not trying to be negative, I simply want to point out that the Bruins made enough mistakes that a slightly better team (and maybe one that wasn't so focused on officiating) might have capitalized on to beat them.
Halak looked solid, apart from that brain fart behind the net. But don't forget that late in the 1st period he covered a puck right on the goal line. If that had gone over and the Bruins fell behind 1-0 late in the opening period, the game might look very different. This was much more of a game of inches (millimetres in Canada) than it appeared at first glance.
Anders Bjork's tripping penalty in the 3rd was so poorly timed and unnecessary. You dominate play for 5 minutes and then give up an opportunity by committing a penalty 180 feet from your net. Bjork had a hat-trick of penalties, on in each period.
All things considered, it was a big win. It was nice to see all the players on the ice giving a full playoff effort, which hasn't been the case for the Bruins since the season restarted.
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