There’s nothing quite like overtime hockey in the playoffs. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. I suppose it’s akin to having open-heart surgery performed by a rookie doctor with the shakes who keeps saying, “Gee, I don’t really remember this part of it.… It’s the most nerveracking, agonizing tightrope act in all of professional sports. I don’t think that’s hyperbole, either. In overtime, every bounce has its own sort of trickle down effect. One bounce means a win, the other means a loss.
Highest of highs, lowest of lows. Thursday night, in Game 1 of their second round series against the Montreal Canadiens, the Boston Bruins were on the latter side of that, as P.K. Subban struck 4:17 into double-overtime, giving the Habs a 4-3 victory, and early 1-0 lead on the series.
For the 17,565 in attendance, that one hurt. Not because of the end result -- though that plays an obvious part, of course -- but the fashion in which the B’s fell just short.
Falling in an 0-2 hole after markers from Subban (on the power play) and Rene Bourque, the Bruins didn’t look engaged, and for lack of a better word, seemed to sleepwalk in the offensive zone.
They carried the play, yes, but their execution was par at the very best. It seemed like every zone entry ended with a pass that was just too cute or a shot that ended in a Montreal block and going the other way. But with the shot of adrenaline that came with Reilly Smith’s goal just 2:44 into the third period, the Bruins were off to the races. Less than four minutes after Smith’s second of the postseason, Torey Krug struck for his sixth career playoff goal. Tied up.
With the Garden rockin’ to the tune of Krug pounding the ‘B’ on his chest a la Milan Lucic (who made it all happen with the absolutely patient look to find No. 47 streaking into the attacking zone) -- kinda reminiscent of the office scene in the Wolf of Wall Street -- the Bruins were flyin’.
Even when Francis Bouillon put the Habs back on top with under eight minutes to go, the Bruins weren’t done. Johnny Boychuk’s blast with 1:58 served as the equalizer.
Overtime? Why not, right?
But when it comes to overtime, there’s always this sort of weird feeling that comes with missed opportunities. At a certain point, they add up, and then you lose. I can’t think of anything that epitomized that sort of mindset more than the 24 minutes plus of overtime we had in Boston. I mean, you can think about chance after chance, really; Carl Soderberg’s shot just dangling on the goal line. Carey Price without a damn clue where the puck was with Smith barreling down on him. Loui Eriksson ringing some iron on a look coming down the wing. You get it.
So when these shots failed to beat Price -- who finished the night with 49 saves -- another Subban power play goal (scored on Montreal’s second power play of overtime) was a fitting death.
Again, at a certain point you need more than chances. You need to bury them.
The Bruins, with more chances than you can even count, simply didn’t do that in Game 1.
“Sometimes we didn’t put it up or elevate it when we had a chance, myself included, but we got great chances and great looks and I thought we had some really good zone-time,… B’s winger Jarome Iginla said after the Game 1 loss. “They had an early power play goal but then they got some goals they got up to a lead and stuff but for the most thought I thought we really carried the play, and did a lot of things we want to do. I know it’s a results thing, but we stay with that and it sucks tonight when you lose, but at the same time we showed a lot of character battling back twice.…
Obviously, a tip of the hat goes to Price and his 49 saves if you’re on the Bruins. The same cannot be said for his counterpart, the 27-year-old Tuukka Rask, who was more than hard on himself after a loss that left him with just 29 saves on 33 shots thrown his way. “I was [expletive] today. Got to be better,… Rask said after the defeat. “When you suck, you suck – That’s it. What can I say?…
I truthfully don’t think he was alone in that regard. (Though I think he was overly hard on himself.)
Most notably, I thought that David Krejci had a rough game. Much has been made of Krejci’s lack of timely scoring this postseason, even if it’s just six games old, and Thursday night wasn’t much better, really. I think that Krejci had his moments where he found separation and had space to operate, but it seemed like there were numerous operations where he’d get the puck between the dots and do absolutely nothing with it. He’d look for the perfect pass or play instead of just getting the puck on net. Looking to pick a bottom corner instead of just lifting the puck.
For all the great things he does (and there are a lot), Krejci played too finesse of a game on Thursday.
His line’s ability to pin the puck in deep and create chances undoubtedly lessens the grumbles you have with his overall Game 1 play, but for me, there’s one ugly stat that really sticks out: No. 46 went just 4-for-12 at the dot in the offensive zone. That’s a bad recipe for a Bruins first line that’s a definite liability when they don’t have the puck on their sticks, which you saw on Bouillon’s goal.
In a perfect world, you look at how the Bruins played that game and say, “Well, if they play like that again, they’ll probably win.… And while I think that that’s a fair point -- I mean how often do you see a goaltender stop all but three of the 50-plus shots thrown his way? -- it’s important to recognize just where the Bruins fell short in their Game 1 84-minute war with the Habs.
In particular, Boston’s penalty kill, which has been great as of late, really let them down.
They survived the first overtime penalty, but as the second one turned out to be the one that burned ‘em, how could they not make an in-game adjustment to a shot that Subban already struck on earlier in the night? That’s just plain old uncharacteristic when you really think about it.
“There’s no panic here. It’s game number one here,… B’s coach Claude Julien reiterated on Thursday. “P.K. Subban’s got a good shot from the point and we’ve got to do a better job of fronting him, but our penalty kill’s been through a lot this year and we still have confidence in it.…
Game 2 is in like, nine hours.
NOT REALLY THAT BREAKING: Racist idiots have access to social media
I had a feeling there’d be a blog on this sort of subject by the end of this series. Granted, I didn’t think it’d be after Game 1, but here we are. But while we're here, let's get a few things out of the way-- What some morons tweeted after Boston's loss on Thursday night was wrong. It's 2014, and there's really no need for that kind of garbage at all.
But when you go looking for nasty stuff and hateful nonsense on a website with account numbers in the actual millions, should you really be surprised?
I mean, in the first round I sort of just sat in disbelief as people feigned outrage over the fact that people on the internet -- some of them Rangers fans in this case -- were spewing hateful language the way of Philadelphia’s Wayne Simmonds. Can you imagine? Morons on the internet? Crazy, I know.
Most of the trash coming Simmonds’ way was based on his race. Again, morons on the internet? It’s almost like the only requirement to have an account of any sort is an email address for a confirmation code. Oh, damn, I guess you’re right-- I didn’t notice that vaguely blurry captcha.
Shockingly enough, many other idiots with Twitter accounts did the same thing after Subban’s game winning goal against the Bruins on Thursday night. Man, this is all very crazy and hard to understand.
So, what do we do to the primarily voiceless (seriously, find me a racist with an actual, noteworthy number of followers please) idiocy of the Internet’s sewer? We give them a voice by way of endless retweets, screencaps, and eyes by way of click-bait articles talking about racism on the internet. I’d like to think that we, especially as bloggers/journalists/media-folk, are smarter than this.
Apparently not.
Now it’s not my job to write a blog on race relations (and My God, is that the last thing I want to do in the middle of a playoff run), but to generalize what some subhumans are saying behind a website that requires no real integrity or common damn sense to sign up as an entire group of people -- Bruins fans, in this case -- is downright silly and stupid. But that’s exactly what the media did in this case. They also let the idiots of the digital age know that you, yes you, can be featured in an online story if you rifle off some 140 characters of racist drivel in between your visits to PornHub and KKK weekly.
What a message to send, really.
But hey, if a city whose fans have shown their appreciation for Georges Laraque or Subban by going to games in black-face (black-face!) want to claim moral high ground and condemn the entire City of Boston as bigots, that’s a big what-the-hell ever from my end. I know my city, and I know that the moronic and nonsensical thoughts of a few nobodies looking for eyeballs are not the ones that shell out their hard earned money to watch talents such as Jarome Iginla.
My only question, I suppose, is why the hell are you searching the n-word after a black player does something worth celebrating? That’s a pretty messed Point A to B, y’know.