Boston Bruins: Clever Round-Robin Move Appeared To Pay Off
It may have only been the one game, but it appears the Boston Bruins’ decision to treat the round-robin as pre-season has paid off thus far.
Rather than risk injury and start the Stanley Cup Playoffs undermanned, the Boston Bruins opted to play at a lower intensity in the round-robin with their relative freshness showing in their Game 1 win.
Compared to the Bruins team we saw stumble against the Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning and Washington Capitals, it was almost chalk and cheese in Game 1.
The intensity level was there, the competitiveness was there and frankly it appears that the top line was playing possum with the entire NHL with their lacklustre performances beforehand.
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Between them the top line of Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron were on hand to score 2 of the goals, grabbing a total of 6 points between them.
Compare that to 1 point between the three of them during the round-robin tournament and it would certainly seem that they’re ready to play now, whether or not they were previously is a moot point now.
It wasn’t just the first line showing up though with the secondary offense there for all to see. Ondrej Kase and David Krejci combined on one of the other goals, with an assist and goal between them, showing some definite chemistry.
Perhaps the only weak spot was Tuukka Rask, though his performance was better than his 0.893 save percentage would suggest. In fact, it highlights a strong defensive effort limiting too many shots on his net.
He conceded on a low-danger shot unfortunately, though the other two Canes goals were on the back of high-danger and moderate-danger shots.
This could possibly be attributed to his lack of true competitive game situations in the past week, but at the end of the day, the Boston Bruins still took the win, so any mishaps can reasonably be swept under the rug.
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Safe to say, the Boston Bruins may well have had the whole league fooled. Treating the early games as a pre-season could well be the key to success this summer. 1 win down, 15 to go!
Statistics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.