Bruins Lose To Penguins, But Who Cares?

Since tonight's game was essentially meaningless to the Boston Bruins, I won't waste much of your time or mine.

The Pittsburgh Penguins (49-25-6) came into TD Garden still looking for home-ice advantage (the No. 4 seed) and so beating the B's (47-29-4) 5-3 was important to them.

Pittsburgh went up 2-0 in the first period, Boston battled back to tie it at 2 in the second before the Penguins rattled off three straight goals to take it. Backup goaltender Brent Johnson made 26 saves for the Penguins.

Sidney Crosby scored twice in the win while Paul Martin, James Neal and Arron Asham also had goals for Pittsburgh. Boston's goals were provided by Benoit Pouliot (15th of the season), Milan Lucic (25th of the season) and Rich Peverley (11th of the season).

Andrew Ference fought Neal late in the second, leaving the smaller Ference with some cuts on his nose and face although to his credit, he was able to take down Neal at the end.

One of the hardest parts about times like this in the NFL or NHL is that you can't scale back the violent nature of the sports. This isn't MLB or NBA where a team can completely coast once they've clinched. That's what makes it so brutal when things like tonight transpire: Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk left in the 3rd period after a nasty (but unintentional) knee-to-knee collision. It'll probably be a few days before we know how bad it truly was but it didn't look good at all. If he's out for a significant amount of time in the playoffs, that's a big loss since he's one of Boston's most reliable defensemen.

I hope you all savored what could possibly be Marty Turco's (22 saves) last game in the Black and Gold. The only other real notable part of this one from a Bruins perspective is that we witnessed Torey Krug's NHL debut. He was solid, the former Michigan State captain is as tiny as advertised but he seems to skate really well for a blueliner.

Before the game, Tyler Seguin received the 7th player award (which is supposed to go to the player who exceeds expectations). How a No. 2 pick can win that is beyond me, Chris Kelly rightfully deserved it although it's a completely useless award, voted on by the fans, so who cares?

The Bruins travel to Ottawa on Thursday. Tim Thomas got some much needed rest tonight and I would expect him to sit out against the Senators too. We might see Anton Khudobin's first NHL start. That's basically the only reason that I will pay any attention to that one.

Tweet


Follow @RichSlate