March 7, 2013; Boston, MA USA; Boston Bruins center
Patrice Bergeron(37) celebrates his goal during the first period against the Toronto Maple Leafs at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports
The Boston Bruins were coming off pretty ugly losses to the Montreal Canadiens and Washington Capitals in which they blew a 3-2 lead going into the 3rd period in both games. They were routinely and uncharacteristically out of position, just not playing very “Bruin-like”. But then the Toronto Maple Leafs came to town and the Bruins did what they do when they play the Leafs recently, they won.
Now don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a dominant performance for the Bruins by any stretch of the imagination. They played well but like head coach Claude Julien said himself, “We’re certainly not perfect right now or firing on all cylinders, but the work ethic was there.” I think that’s a fair assessment from Julien and they did play hard tonight, but there are still too many defensive lapses and odd-man rushes going on for my liking. Yet they were able to do enough tonight to walk away with the win and put some tough losses behind them.
The third line played alright I guess but I don’t want to see Jay Pandolfo nightly. The Bruins need to trade for someone or bring up Jordan Caron, Ryan Spooner or maybe even Craig Cunningham. I don’t care if they bring Chris Bourque back, I thought he was playing okay but none of these guys are the answer, they’re just a finger in the dam. It also doesn’t help that Rich Peverley keeps shooting the puck off the high glass and Chris Kelly can’t hit anything but the post, whatever happens this line needs work and the B’s need some more production from their 3rd line.
There was one line however that did carry their weight and it’s not the first game they’ve taken over this year and it will most certainly not be the last. Tyler Seguin (2 goals, 1 assist), Patrice Bergeron (1 G, 2 A) and Brad Marchand (0 G, 2 A) were determined to not allow the Bruins to lose their 3rd game in a row. They were fun to watch and were skating with a purpose as usual.
With the win the Bruins record moves to 15-3-3 on the season, good for 4th in the Eastern Conference (they have more points than the 2nd place Pittsburgh Penguins and 3rd place Carolina Hurricanes but those guys are division leaders).
Boston’s record pretty much mirrors their recent success versus the Leafs. In their last 12 games home games vs Toronto the Bruins are 10-1-1 and in their last 35 overall against the Leafs they are 25-5-5. Not to mention this was Boston’s 8th win in a row vs Toronto. I’m not positive but still pretty certain that if you look up the definition of “domination” in a dictionary this would be there.
Like the title of this post reads, “When all else fails for the Bruins, just play the Maple Leafs“.