At a time like this when our country literally seems to be falling apart more and more everyday due to many factors (the Covid-19 pandemic, racial unrest, senseless killings by police, a disgrace of a President, apocalyptic wildfires and hurricanes bearing down on California and the Gulf Coast respectively, etc.), it's hard to get too worked up about a sporting event. On the same day when the NBA rightfully paused its playoff action in their Orlando bubble, MLS, WNBA and MLB also chose to postpone some of their games but the lillywhite NHL carried on like nothing was happening around them. The easy move was to not play any of their playoff games this evening after what unfolded around them but nope, the Bruins and Lightning played in Toronto while the Avalanche and Stars took the ice later in Edmonton.
The B's looked like a team that didn't want to be there either as they were embarrassed from start to finish in a humbling 7-1 loss in Game 3, their largest margin of defeat in the postseason since April 29, 1992 (9-3 loss at Buffalo in Game 6 of Division semifinal). The Lightning won their second game in roughly 24 hours to take a 2-1 series lead and totally flip the momentum. Jaroslav Halak got the start but he only lasted basically half the game (31:18) as he allowed four goals on 16 shots. Rookie goaltender Dan Vladar was put in the impossible position to make his NHL debut in relief of him and he predictably allowed three goals on 15 shots.
Tampa Bay's power play had been a disaster (2-for-20 in the bubble) but they turned that around in a major way going 3-for-6 this evening. Nikita Kucherov (goal, 3 assists) set a playoff career-high with four points while Harvard's Alex Killorn (2 goals, assist) tied his playoff career-high with three points. Everybody on the Lightning put up numbers as Mikhail Sergachev (goal, 2 assists) had his first multi-point playoff performance, Brayden Point (goal, 2 assists) added three points of his own while even nobodies like Ondrej Palat and Yanni Gourde each had a goal and an assist. Apparently Andrei Vasilevskiy (23 saves) was in attendance but you could have put a traffic cone in Tampa's net and it probably would make around the same amount of stops.
Boston was down 2-0 in the first period as Tampa Bay set a franchise record by scoring its pair of goals (Palat on the power play then Gourde) only 15 seconds apart. Both of those were frustrating too since Palat's shot deflected off Zdeno Chara then Gourde's came from a breakaway when a referee literally ran into Bruins rookie defenseman Jeremy Lauzon. The wheels started to come off for the B's in the second period as Sergachev scored on the man-advantage before Brad Marchand notched a power-play goal (his team-leading seventh goal of the playoffs) that was very similar to last night's skate/stick re-direct. That didn't slow down Tampa as Killorn bagged a power play goal of his own-causing Halak to mercifully get the rest of the night off-then Point had a breakaway vs. Vladar which surprise ended in a goal then Killorn tallied another goal as the Bruins defense was in shambles.
Kucherov got the last goal in garbage time, I mean early in the third period. If you were looking for positive signs of life from anybody in a B's jersey, Charlie McAvoy, Torey Krug and David Krejci all showed plenty of understandable frustration as they tried to take it out by roughing up the Lightning when the outcome had long been decided. Every game in this series has been chippy and that will no doubt continue for as long as these pseudo-rivals line up against each other.
So where do we all go from here? Well besides hopefully waking up tomorrow and realizing that this has all been an extended national nightmare, we are then only left to assume that the prideful Bruins will show up on Friday night for Game 4 (7:30, USA Network) and at least submit a more satisfactory effort. Tampa is very good but they aren't unbeatable like it felt tonight while Boston is much better than this sorry effort would lead you to believe. I will call it a must-win for the Black and Gold too since they are not realistically going to win three straight games against the Lightning. Bigger picture for the club, it could be a defining moment for beloved players like Chara, Marchand, David Krejci, Patrice Bergeron, etc. who are likely making their last playoff run all together. No pressure or anything but yeah, Friday is a very important chapter in modern Bruins history.
No comments:
Post a Comment