Congrats on 1002 games Chara (Credit: Slidingsideways/ Flickr)
Home ice seems to mean a lot whenever the Boston Bruins play the Tampa Bay Lightning. In the three games that these two teams have played against one another, home ice meant winner. Well tonight the Lightning hit the TD Garden ice in good old Boston for the forth and final regular season meet up.
Before the game started the Bruins put on a beautiful presentation to celebrate Zdeno Chara’s 1000 game which took place on Saturday. The ceremony was pretty cool and what’s cooler is Chara is the 9th defenseman in NHL history to ever play 1000 games. Captain Z deserved all of the praise and presents but my favorite thing was the massive silver replica hockey stick…that thing was HUGE!
We know return you to your regularly scheduled hockey game. So the B’s kept their line up the same as Sunday meaning Daniel Paille, Joe Corvo, Mike Mottau, and newly acquired Torey Krug got the healthy scratches. Goal tender wise it was different so Tim Thomas got the start against the Lightning’s Dwayne Roloson.
Steven Stamkos gets the first goal in the game (shocking) five minutes into the first getting his season goal tally to 54. When credit is due I give props so good work sir. So far B’s wise the Brad Marchand- Patrice Bergeron- Rich Peverley line is looking pretty good in getting some pressure on Roloson. At 9:06 Shawn Thornton gets set up by a beautiful pass from Chara for his 5th goal of the season. That would be his first goal in 36 games…his last goal was a penalty shot against the Winnipeg Jets (I was there!!). That was all the scoring that happened in the first.
Second period was kind of boring. But there was a goal and it was the Bruins so yay. With 4:55 to go Chara with a slap shot from the point got a rebound to Dennis Seidenberg to make it 2-1 Bruins. Something positive to take from the first two periods is that the Bruins are 22-2-0 when leading after 2.
Then third period happened and at 14:14 Stamkos got his 55th of the year…yawn. The Bruins are holding most of the momentum but Tampa is staying alive. Not too long after Adam McQuaid took a hit and went down hard head first. Not a good sign for someone that has had head problems this season. But thankfully he does return to the bench. At 8:26 Benoit Pouliot scores his 14th of the season and puts the Bruins back on top. With 4:10 left Brad Marchand makes it a 4-2 game and no sooner was Roloson pulled leaving an empty net. Peverley, back and stronger than ever, took advantage of the open net and secured the win with a 5-2 victory.
This is the third win in a row for the Bruins and having this kind of momentum is so important come playoffs. Bruins play their next game at home against the Washington Capitals.
A Cup A Bruin 