Daniel Paille scored the lone goal for the Bruins tonight. (Photo Credit: Steph Phillips)
Once again the Division showdown was decided by a single goal. Unfortunately, for the second and final time of the regular season, the Bruins were on the losing end of the stick. The Bruins now sit 3 points behind the Montreal Canadiens in the race for Division champs with a single game in hand. This is one rivalry that is going to race right up until the very end.
The Bruins first period was atrocious. They came out of the locker rooms almost in a daze as they skated around haphazardly and threw careless passes around. They managed to tally 5 shots through the entire twenty minute frame, all of them coming from defensemen. At the end of one they found themselves trailing by a goal and they’re lucky that’s all they were trailing as they certainly didn’t play like the Bruins team we all know they are capable of. The Canadiens were able to get a goal from Alex Galchenyuk off of a bad play from Bruins’ defenseman Matt Bartkowski. Despite the d-man’s attempt to save it after Rask went sprawling, the puck ended up deflecting off of him and over the goal line.
The second frame was arguably the best the Bruins played. They came out focused (for the most part) and despite giving up the power play goal 57 seconds into the frame, contained Montreal pretty decently. They battled back and forth through much of the second period and at the 12:50 mark there was a glimpse of hope as Johnny Boychuk blasted a shot towards the net that deflected off of Daniel Paille past Carey Price before he even knew it was coming at him. The goal injected momentum into the Bruins for the remainder of the period, but still managed to go into the final intermission down by one.
The third period brought intensity from both teams. Unfortunately for the Bruins it was too little too late aside from Tuukka making some Tim Thomas-like saves. With 56.4 seconds remaining in regulation they found themselves on their first power play of the game, a welcomed thought with the acquisition of Jaromir Jagr or so we thought. Typically in this situation the team pulls their goaltender for a 2-man advantage, which is exactly what the Bruins did. However, for the entire 56 seconds the Bruins passed the puck. Last time we checked, you needed to shoot the puck at the net in order to score goals. That’s part of Hockey 101. After the game Jagr admitted losing track of time and hung his head, however, he was only one of six men on the ice, any one of them could have taken a shot at Price as there were plenty of opportunities.
The Bruins now head back to the Garden to take on the Carolina Hurricanes for the second time this season in hopes of bouncing back and earning a much needed 2 points in the standings as the season winds down.
A Cup A Bruin 