Vancouver Edges Boston 4-3 In Grudge Match

During the scrum, you could see Daniel Sedin look at the number of Canucks on the ice and quickly scoot onto the bench.  Just after this, another Canuck came into the scrum.  If my math is correct, that’s 7 Canucks on the ice at one time.

Meanwhile, Lucic gets tossed from the game and the Bruins end up down two men for a full 2 minutes!  And the B’s almost killed off the penalty but Ryan Kesler got a lucky bounce and scored with20 seconds left on the PP off a blocked shot.  Of course after the game the league reviewed the tape and rescinded Lucic’s game misconduct, but that call shifted outlook of that game, as the Bruins basically played the entire game without their 1st line left wing.  But that’s the price they pay for Lucic’s reputation.  Live by the sword, die by the sword.

The Bruins did tie it up at 1-1 later in the period.  After a great breakout, Tyler Seguin crossed the blue line, stopped and feathered a perfect pass to Marchand, who cut across the front of the net and slid the puck under Cory Schneider‘s pad.

Unfortunately, the Bruins just couldn’t stay out the box on Saturday afternoon and they paid the price, putting the league’s best Power Play up a man 11 times!  Not all of the calls were just, but the Bruins had 7 power plays of their own and can’t blame anyone but themselves for not taking advantage of that.  After the Boston took a 2-1 lead on a Rich Peverley snipe, the Canucks came back and scored again on the man-advantage to tie things at 2-2.  Then the Marchand play happened.  With 1:13 left in the 2nd period and things seemingly calming down, Marchand committed and ugly clipping penalty sending Sami Salo head over skates, coming down hard on his shoulder.  As Marchand went to retrieve the puck on the left half-wall, Salo came skating towards Marchand looking to take the body.  At the last second, Marchand lets the puck continue up the boards and gets below Salo’s hip and takes him out.  It was definitely a low hit and Marchand definitely knew what he was doing.  Marchand is a great young player, but these types of plays are becoming a part of his repertoire and that’s not a good thing.  You can play on the line and cross it sometimes too, but hit’s like these can severely injure another player.  Hopefully he’s still young enough to learn that or he’ll begin to be seen as a Matt Cooke and no one in Boston, the team or the fans, want that.