This would happen to the Bruins, that's all I can think after last night's utterly predictable 2-1 Game 6 loss to the Flyers at the Wachoiva Center.
Tomorrow night at the TD Garden, the B's will seek to avoid becoming the fourth team in pro sports to ever give up a 3-0 lead in the playoffs.
For the second straight game, Philly came out fast and scored early as Mike Richards flipped one past Tuukka Rask (25 saves) at 6:58 in the first period. Simon Gagne and Dan Carcillo assisted.
Late in the first period and for most of the second period, Boston carried the play and started to get plenty of possession in the Flyers' zone. They put 31 shots on Michael Leighton but in his first NHL playoff start, he didn't have to do too much.
When Danny Briere put a power play goal off Rask and into the net at 16:20, you just knew this series was going the distance. Richards and Claude Giroux assisted on the goal that Rask should have stopped, but you can't fault him since he made some top-notch saves to keep the Bruins in it.
Ville Leino got a gift of a penalty shot in the third period but Rask stuffed him, a nice play that seemed mostly meaningless at the time.
With one minute left in the game and Rask pulled, Milan Lucic tied it thanks to some grunt work around Philly's net. Zdeno Chara and Dennis Wideman assisted on the goal that would have been awesome if it came oh I don't know, in any of the earlier 59 scoreless minutes for Boston.
So here we are: there's not much to say. Win tomorrow night and the Bruins will make their first Eastern Conference Finals since 1992 and believe it or not, they'll have home ice since the Canadians took care of the Penguins in Game 7 last night.
Lose and they'll be the laughingstock of sports for a long, long time. No pressure boys.
No comments:
Post a Comment