Bruins Struck By Lightning. Teddy Who?
By Frank Rekas
Today’s music choice is Satellites by Longwave.
After building a 3-0 lead for themselves the Boston Bruins must have felt that they could go on cruise control the rest of the way. Not so as they had their own version of rapture for the next 40 minutes. Tim Thomas the Bruins goaltender couldn’t have said it better:
"“We got outworked,” Thomas said. “They took over. They took the play to us. They started getting scoring chances and we stopped getting scoring chances.”"
Tampa’s Teddy Purcell scored twice, Simon Gagne got the game winner, proving that when healthy, he can be as clutch as they come. Goaltender Mike Smith came on in relief of Dwayne Roloson who was pulled for the second time in three games. Smith stopped 21 Bruin shots and had this to say afterward:
"“There’s no time to think,” Smith said. “It’s just one of those things where we got behind the 8-ball there in the first. That’s why I’m on the bench, to come in and kind of settle the team down and give them a little bit of a momentum. It ended up working out.”"
Nathan Horton, the ex- lazy ass of the Panthers was in some controversy on this hit to Tampa’s Steve Downie. Horton was called for roughing and Downie was called for diving. Once again NHL officials prove to be inconsistent. No way Downie dived on that. Regardless of his reputation as an agitator, Horton should have received the lone penalty.
Goals for the Bruins came from Patrice Bergeron (two) and Michael Ryder. Tyler Seguin has been pretty quiet lately, meaning that Tampa may have made some adjustments to their game and limit his ice space. Boston coach Claude Julien wasn’t pleased with his team’s performance indicating that many of his players did not have their best game. With a chance to go up 3 games to one, and come home for game five, the Bruins now have the pressure on them heading back to Boston.
Say what you want about Tampa, but I think you can give a boatload of credit to first year coach Guy Boucher. He has this Lightning team playing some great hockey. Never giving up, always working hard, and has made his players believe in his system. I like his emotional ways and his approach to the game. For a young coach with no NHL experience, he’s taken a team that has veteran’s, journeymen, and youngsters and has put them on the right track. If the Florida Panthers can get a guy like this to coach their team and build a roster this way, we’ll be pretty happy campers.
Here’s Guy Boucher’s post game interview. May 20th.
The series is now best out of three. I stand behind my prediction of Tampa in seven.
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