Detroit head coach Mike Babcock didn’t want to make excuses for his club following their Game 5 loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday, eliminating them out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
But if Babcock did decide to make an excuse, or even a few excuses for that matter, would anybody really blame him? Sure, the Red Wings extended their playoff streak to 23 straight years, but My God, were they decimated. Almost none of the Wings’ veterans were at 100 percent (or even close to 100 percent for that matter), and by the end of the series their conditioning definitely looked like an issue. Behind the hobbled veterans, the Wings were relying on their share of, well, kids.
“I’m not trying to take anything away from Boston, real good team. Real heavy team. Real organized, all those things. But you want to be the best you can be and I didn’t think we were,… Babcock said after Game 5. “But it was a real good experience for our kids. We had lots of kids in this series that were important parts of the team that got us in the playoffs, and they found out how hard it is.
“[Patrice] Bergeron and [David] Krejci are real good players in their prime. [Pavel] Datsyuk and [Henrik] Zetterberg are both hurt. So that advantaged them right off the get go. More experience, they count on guys that are older players that have been around for sure. We’re counting on kids. You know, straight forward we’re counting on our young guys and I thought that showed.…
Even Detroit’s Jimmy Howard found himself shelved by the end of the series, missing the last two games of the series with a flu that deemed him too sick to perform.
Everything that could’ve gone wrong against a win-now Bruins club did.
But B’s coach Claude Julien knows that the Wings should be better off from this experience.
“Not only do they have some good veterans player on their team, but they also have some good young players who no doubt grew, just like our young players have in the past through playoff experience like that,… Julien said on Saturday. “It’s something you can’t buy, so there’s a lot of teams right now that would love to give their young players that opportunity, and Detroit had that, and I’m sure they’re going to be a better group and better players on the road because they had that opportunity to play. We play a heavy game, so probably good on their end there to see how playoffs are played. So there’s no doubt there’s a lot of positives that Detroit can take out of this series.…
On Boston’s end, the production was both deep and balanced. Their defense -- finally at the new, sans Seidenberg/McQuaid version of 100 percent -- looked in mid-playoff form, and goaltender Tuukka Rask was lights out. And as the B’s wave so long to the Red Wings, let’s take another look at just what went right for the Black-and-Gold.
Gustav Nyquil: Bruins silence scoring sensation
Everybody thought that Gustav Nyquist would be the absolute x-factor against the Bruins, and understandably so. A kid that turned the burners on at a moments notice and struck with 18 goals (and 30 points) in the final 28 games of the season, the 24-year-old Nyquist was undoubtedly going to be counted on to bring the offensive flare that brought the Wings to the postseason.
Instead, Nyquist was shut way the hell down by the Black-and-Gold.
After a promising Game 1 showing where his line seemed to create matchup troubles for the Krejci line, the Swedish sniper went missing. That might even be me being nice to him, really.
Finishing the series with zero goals, zero points, 13 shots, and a minus-1 in 76:54, the Bruins failed to let Nyquist be the game-changer that he was throughout the post-Olympic season.
“I just think kids in general aren’t very successful at playoff time unless they’re one of three on a line, or they’re the sixth D-men, but when you’re counting on them I think it’s hard for them. And when you can surround them with a bunch of veterans that look after them it’s a totally different thing,… Babcock said after Saturday’s loss. “When you’re counting on them, they get here and they find out there’s no space. They wonder what’s going on and instead of just fighting through it they start thinking too much and now they’re slow and now they’re not doing what they normally do.…
Shutting Nyquist down allowed the Bruins to focus their own-zone game around what the Detroit top line of Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Justin Abdelkader were up to.
Powerful play of the power play
The Bruins had 16 power play opportunities in their first round series against the Red Wings. They converted on six of those opportunities, too, good for a 37.5 power-play percentage. Think about the power play futility of 2011, 2012, and really every year besides this one, to be honest, for one second and let that figure sink in for just a moment, please. The power play is a legitimate weapon for this Bruins team, which is already one of the best five-on-five teams in the league. That’s scary, really.
“The power play has helped us a lot through this series and it certainly makes it a lot easier. We’ve won before without having a successful power play, but when you’ve got that arsenal, it certainly makes it a lot easier,… Julien said at the end of the series. “Our penalty kill’s been great since the beginning of the playoffs and we need to continue to be a strong in both those areas, and we were.…
But it’s not just the Bruins’ top power-play unit that’s killing it right. Both groups have looked at the top of their game when given the opportunity. You look at Game 5’s power play, and the first goal starts with an amazing rush up into the zone and at the net for Dougie Hamilton, with Loui Eriksson putting the finishing touches on the goal. Their second goal, scored on a 4-on-3, came on an absolute bomb from Zdeno Chara (who was back at the point in that scenario instead of standing at the front of the net like he has with tremendous success in 2013-14).
“I think that we worked really hard this season to have a better power play and we’ve got to continue to do that. Like everything else, you can’t be just relying on power plays,… Chara, the B’s captain since 2006, admitted. “I think that the penalty kill is doing a good job for us as well. We’ve got to continue to do our job five-on-five, all the zones; pretty much we can’t just be looking at ‘okay we’re going to wait for a power play to count on’ – even if it’s better, which is nice. We scored some goals this series being on power plays but we can’t be just relying on that.…
Depth showed up
I think one of the biggest problems for last year’s Bruins squad -- if not thee biggest -- was that their third line never got into any sort of rhythm last spring. It was a constant mix-and-match for Julien, and that ultimately haunted the Bruins in their bid for their second Cup in three years. And when Gregory Campbell went down late in round three, it was over. The B’s depth was shot.
In round one, the B’s bottom six forwards combined three goals and six points. Two of those three goals even came from fill-ins Jordan Caron and Justin Florek, too. In fact, the only member of the B’s bottom six still without a point in the playoffs is Campbell. There are obvious game-changers on the third line with Eriksson and Carl Soderberg, but guys like Caron (whose forechecking game has been tremendous) and Florek are contributing, and that’s not going unnoticed by some of their teammates that have seen everything the playoffs have to offer.
“I think Jordy and Flo stepped in and did a great job. Flo’s first year, obviously, and first few games – think he played really well this series,… B’s enforcer Shawn Thornton said. “And Jordy being in and out of the lineup all year, he did a great job of keeping himself in game-ready shape and he was buzzing out there as we’ve been saying all week – buzzing.…
Through five games, the Bruins have goals from 10 different skaters, and only Campbell, Brad Marchand, and defenseman Johnny Boychuk have yet to record a point despite playing in all five of the club’s postseason contests thus far.
And given the balance the Bruins have found from line one to four, that’s not a problem just yet.