Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda. Bruins over Panthers 3-2

Today’s music choice is Brick by Boring Brick by Paramore.

Unfinished opportunities.  An opposing goaltender who was a brick wall.  Losing a lead, and allowing the game to get not only to overtime, but allowing the game to be decided in a shootout.  The Florida Panthers started their homestand on the wrong side of the victory column as Boston’s Blake Wheeler scored the only goal in the skills competition shootout.

The members of the Rat Trick, now affectionately called The Rat Pack (unless you come up with something else) were all in attendance at last nights game.  Myself, Dave and Josh all took part in the Monday night event, unfortunately unable to bring home a winner.  By the way, the tarps in the upper deck were removed, and the Bank Atlantic center was almost filled to capacity.  A good site indeed.

The story of the night was really the missed chances by the Panthers.  As good as they were, however Bruins goalie Tim Thomas was even better.  Three power play opportunities squandered as the leagues worst PP continued it’s putrid behavior.  Two breakaway chances that made you scream”Where’s Pavel”!  Marty Reasoner and Chris Higgins both were stoned by Thomas, who was nothing short of spectacular.

David Booth finally broke out of his goal scoring drought to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead after we all watched the paint dry in the first period.  What could be worse than watching a Claude Julien team against a cautiously coached Peter DeBoer team? One coached by Jacques Martin.  Never fear as Jacques brings his cans of paint to spill on the ice here on Friday night.  I digress, it was good to see Booth get himself a goal, but his game is still not quite where it should be.  A couple times when he should have drove towards the net, or taken the shot, he stopped short, and or passed.  Clearly he’s not right.

Mike Santorelli put the Panthers ahead 2-1, responding to Boston’s David Kreci who had both Bruin goals in regulation.  The goal was questioned at first when it seamed that Santorelli may have tipped the shot from Michael Frolik, who aimed one at the net from the far point. That stood up until Kreci scored with just under 10 minutes left in regulation.

Scott Clemmesen who was the surprise starter over Tomas Vokoun was solid in net, stopping 40 shots, some of them just as good as the saves that Thomas made.  The problem is that if you continue to allow that many shots per game, you’ll eventually find yourself in trouble.  Vokoun made 45 saves in the win over Buffalo Thursday, so you can see our goalies are getting their fair share of rubber thrown at them.

As the game went into the “free hockey” segment, the Bruins had 4 shots to the Panthers one, as neither team pressed too much, ultimately leading to the shootout.  The Panther choices may have been somewhat questionable as Santorelli, Weiss and Dadonov all missed their chances.  Weiss’s shot was “soft” at best.  My question though is, where was our sniper David Booth?  While Evgeny Dadonov is quite talented and very skilled, I’m not sure selecting him over Booth right now did anything for Booth’s confidence.  As well as Dadonov’s, who missed.

Nathan Horton’s scoreless streak is now at six consecutive games.  The boo birds were successful as Horton was a non factor.  Bryan Allen dumped Horts in the third period.  A check that went widely unnoticed by the crowd.

Here’s the TSN boxscore. Check out FanSided’s Causeway Crowd.

You could say that the Panthers blew another lead.  You could say that the Panthers missed some great scoring chances.  You can certainly say that the effort is there and that there are basically no complaints about the way they are playing.

You can also say that we need to be able to finish!

Thanks for reading.  Your comments are welcomed and appreciated.

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