The NHL Needs an Epic Bruins-Lightning Series This Upcoming Postseason In the Worst Way

I could go on all day about the beauty of the NHL playoffs (only about a month away now!) but one of my favorite aspects is that the matchups don't even really matter that much (at least like they do in other sports) to still produce a classic playoff series. Still, if two clubs (most likely division rivals) can enter with built in hatred and animosity, well all the better! The Bruins (43-14-12) and Lightning (43-20-5) finished the regular season series tonight at TD Garden with a thoroughly entertaining 5-3 victory by Tampa Bay. Boston went 1-2-1 against the Lightning in 2019/20 but the previous three contests were all decided by a goal: Tampa won a shootout 4-3 on Oct. 17, Lightning edged the B's 3-2 on Dec. 23 and Boston won 2-1 on Tuesday. These are no doubt about it two of the best teams in the NHL complete with star power up and down their lineups so another meeting in the playoffs (remember the Lightning wiped the Bruins out of the second-round in 5 games 2 years ago) would be nirvana for hockey fans.

An NHL regular season game on March 7 has no business being this thrilling but when you have line brawls and chipiness after seemingly every whistle, you know that Jack Edwards might need a clean up in the NESN booth afterwards. Before things got wild, they were weird as Tampa Bay scored on its first two shots of the game and they both happened to be during the same Bruins power play. The Lightning built up a 3-0 lead before the B's came roaring back with a pair of goals to cut it to 3-2. Harvard's best NHL player in a generation-Alex Killorn-gave Tampa an insurance goal before the top goal-scorer in the league (David Pastrnak, 48!) got on the scoresheet. Nikita Kucherov has points in 21 of his last 22 games (his only scoreless outing was Tuesday's loss vs. Boston) so he fittingly got some retribution with an empty-netter that clinched it. Meanwhile, the two teams combined for 94 penalty minutes which included two official fights and two misconducts not to mention countless scrums, donnybrooks and even a line brawl in the second period. Say it with me folks, old time hockey! Are you not entertained?

Tuukka Rask (20 saves, 25-8-6) is the frontrunner for the Vezina Trophy this season (it would be his second after capturing it in 2013-14) as the top goalie in the NHL but understandably, many Bruins fans will never fully feel comfortable with him until he wins a Stanley Cup of his own. He was Tim Thomas' backup in 2011 and never entered during that magical run. I hate to even bring it up but allowing two goals on the first two shots by the Lightning definitely sported the odor of Game 7 vs. St. Louis in June when a couple early goals by the Blues crippled the Bruins right away and they never recovered. Keep in mind that Steven Stamkos (core muscle surgery) is expected to miss six to eight weeks for Tampa Bay and their All-World defenseman Victor Hedman only played 4:36 tonight (7 shifts) after picking up an injury of his own. In other words, as great as those guys are, the Lightning clearly aren't a one or two-man team. Brandon Carlo (upper-body injury, cough concussion) was also a key player missing for the Bruins after getting hurt on Thursday at Florida (34-26-8) in Boston's 2-1 win.

Anthony Cirelli (who sounds like someone that plays in your Wednesday night men's league at Hockeytown in Saugus, MA) made it 1-0 Tampa at 5:08. His 16th goal of the season was unassisted and it came just six seconds into Boston's first power play of the tilt. If that wasn't bad enough, the Lightning doubled their lead 1:02 after that with another shorthanded tally. Mikhail Sergachev (forced into a game-high 28:20 of ice time with Hedman out) cranked in a one-timer from Yanni Gourde for a stunning 2-0 lead for Tampa and his 10th goal of the season. Boston hadn't allowed two shorthanded goals in the same game in over a year (Dec. 23, 2018 vs. Carolina) and you have to go back to Dec. 4, 1966 (vs. Toronto) when they allowed a pair of shorties on the same power play. Yeesh. Chris Wagner and Barclay Goodrow (a lost lax bro?) tried to fight later in the first period but the refs wouldn't allow it. Luckily after they went to the penalty box for unsportstmanlike conduct, they proceeded to come out and get into a bout six seconds after the penalty had expired. It wasn't exactly Wilder-Fury I but the Garden crowd certainly ate it up like it was a boxing classic. The scoreboard almost seemed like a joke at the end of the frame as the B's trailed 2-0 yet had outshot the Lightning 14-5. Spoiler alert, kids: that's really hard to do!

When Cedric Paquette put Tampa Bay ahead 6:50 into the second period with a wide open roof job from the door step, you had to wonder if this would be like Boston's 9-3 humbling defeat in Vancouver two weeks ago. Thankfully for the paying customers (and the Bruins fans around the globe), this was not a repeat performance of that dreadful no-show to end an otherwise great road trip. Nope, this evening the Black and Gold decided to fight back both literally (with fists) and where it counts the most (with goals). After a rough season offensively, Charlie McAvoy has played like the franchise defenseman that Boston hopes that he can fully turn into once the ageless Zdeno Chara finally retires. Boston University can be directly thanked for the first Bruins goal since it came from McAvoy (4-on-4), assisted by Charlie Coyle and Matt Grzelcyk (all BU alums). McAvoy's fifth goal of the season cut it to 3-1 and it came at 14:50 of the second period. The next few minutes were truly bizarre as the puck seemed to sneak by Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (35 saves, 35-13-3) but play continued for a few minutes well until things devolved into a full out battle royale 90s WWF style. After a review, Sean Kuraly was credited with the goal (his 6th of the season) from McAvoy and Ondrej Kase (his 1st point as a Bruin) at 18:37. Those last five-plus minutes of the second period after McAvoy's goal were scintillating: hockey (or sports in general) doesn't get much better than that in terms of incredible plays, physicality or crazy twists and turns.

Killorn's career-high 26th goal of the season at 1:08 of the third period was a bit of a wet fart to the proceedings. He tipped in Sergachev's shot from the point with Brayden Point fittingly grabbing the other helper. Somehow though like a horror movie villain, the Bruins wouldn't die as Pasta's blast of his own on the power play trimmed Tampa Bay's lead to 4-3 at 6:37. Torey Krug (40th assist! 5-game point streak) and Brad Marchand (NHL-best 13-game point streak) had the assists on the goal that put Pastrnak one goal ahead of Washington's Alex Ovechkin. Once again with all the momentum on their side, the B's felt destined to tie it and they couldn't have asked for a better chance to do that but Vasilevskiy stopped Pastrnak on a breakaway. Boston head coach Bruce Cassidy waited a bit to pull Rask but it was a moot point when Kucherov stole the puck in the Bruins' end and put in his team-best 33rd goal of the season with 1:02 left in regulation.

Just recapping that memorable meeting, I feel like I need a hot shower and message to recover so I can only imagine how the players and coaches feel. As you would expect, the Bruins won't practice tomorrow and they will be back at Warrior Ice Arena in Brighton, MA on Monday morning before hitting the road to play the hottest team in the league-the Flyers (41-20-7)-on Tuesday (7, NBCSN). Philadelphia has won nine straight games to pull into a virtual deadlock with the sputtering Capitals (4-4-2 in their last 10 games) for first-place in the Metropolitan Division. Philly's rapid rise has to be one of the most unexpected developments of this season, especially considering how stacked the Metropolitan is with the Islanders (35-23-9) and Blue Jackets (32-21-15) currently occupying the top two Wild Card spots in the East. Furthermore, the Hurricanes (36-25-5) and Rangers (36-28-4) are breathing down their necks as well. It's a relatively quiet week for the B's as they go to lifeless Buffalo (29-31-8)-losers of their last six games (Free Eichel!) on Friday (7, NESN) then they have a back-to-back with Toronto (35-25-9) coming here on Saturday night (7, NESN).

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Tampa Bay Jumps Out to Early 2-0 Lead & Never Look Back En Route to an Easy 4-1 Win In Game 3

To state the obvious: the Lightning are not the Maple Leafs. Nope, not one bit. After Boston managed to come away with a 6-2 victory in Game 1 on Saturday at Tampa Bay, the Lightning bounced back with a 4-2 win at Amalie Arena on Monday. As the series shifted to TD Garden, Tampa continued to be the aggressor as they scored twice in the first 3:19 of Game 3 to skate away with a 4-1 win and 2-1 series lead. Like an older brother to a younger brother, the Lightning completely smothered the Bruins in almost every facet of the contest that mattered: earning four more power plays (5-1) and recording eight more shots on goal (37-29).

This sets up what is basically a must-win for the B's on Friday (7, NBCSN) since it's hard to fathom that they could beat the Lightning three games in a row after what we've seen out of Tampa Bay in the past two tilts. Of course, it's hard to beat anybody in the playoffs when you combine for three goals in two games. The Tuukka Rask (33 saves) haters should take a night off since this wasn't his fault at all, in fact it could have been much worse since he made a bunch of saves when the outcome was still to be decided. Tampa's goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy hasn't looked exactly picturesque in this series, but it's tough to argue with his results lately.

It was the first day of 2018 that felt like summer with temperatures around New England well into the 80s so you could excuse some of the Bruins' fans for showing up a few minutes late. The Lightning didn't take pity on us poor untanned Northerners as they scored not one but two goals before Boston could blink. Boston rookie defenseman Matt Grzelcyk made a mistake on a puck flipped into his defensive zone and Tyler Johnson was able to feed Ondrej Palat for an easy goal at 1:47. Palat's third of the postseason was also assisted by Anton Stralman. Giving up the first goal is one thing but another right on top of it is unforgivable, especially on home ice. Palat bagged another at 3:19 by deftly tipping in a shot from Victor Hedman. The ghost of Dan Girardi had his first assist of the playoffs on Palat's third goal in the last two games (2 periods to be exact).

The only time that Boston was really in it was for a brief few minutes late in the first period: they converted their only power play opportunity in only 29 seconds as Patrice Bergeron banged in a sweet one-handed pass from David Pastrnak. Brad Marchand had the second assist on Bergeron's fourth goal of the postseason which cut Tampa Bay's lead to 2-1. The Bruins defense let Rask and the rest of the club down on the third goal as rookie Anthony Cirelli was able to take not one (whiffed), not two (saved by Rask) but three shots that understandably were too much to survive in such a fast sequence. Cirelli's first career playoff goal was assisted by fellow rookie Yanni Gourde and Ryan McDonagh.

You waited for the Black and Gold to make a push in the second but they didn't. David Backes fought Cedric Paquette after Tampa Bay's resident wannabe tough guy jumped Backes who had had boarded Girardi. Paquette ended up with a 10-minute misconduct but that hardly mattered since he is an irrelevant buffoon. The scary part for the Bruins is that the Lightning two best players (and 2 of the top forwards in the NHL)-Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos-have been really quiet. Stamkos got an empty-netter with 41.2 seconds left in regulation, only his second goal of the postseason and amazingly, the first point of the series for Tampa's beastly top line.

To win Game 4 and get back in this series, Boston has to shoot way better than they did in Game 3. Tonight they had a whopping 19 shots blocked and if that wasn't bad enough, they missed the net with another 17 shots. This evening, Tommy Wingels was inserted on the fourth line for Tim Schaller but he didn't do anything notable (-1 in 11:24 with 1 shot on goal, 5 hits and 1 blocked shot). Since the Bruins have scored only three goals in the past two games (with just 1 from a forward), I would give rookie Ryan Donato another chance because putting the puck in the net is his specialty. Adam McQuaid wasn't hurt but only skated 9:46 in Game 3 so perhaps he could be scratched for Nick Holden, not that he would likely change the dynamics of this matchup.

As you can imagine, the numbers don't look great for the B's heading into Game 4: they are 8-23 all-time in best-of-seven series when they trail a series 2-1 and they are 16-15 in Game 4s when trailing a series 2-1. The Lightning are 5-3 all-time in best-of-seven series when they lead a series 2-1 but they are 3-5 in Game 4s when leading a series 2-1. The simple remedy for the Bruins appears to be a fast start in Game 4: put some actual pressure on the Lightning and make them play from behind while the Garden goes bananas. Boston's fans wanted something to cheer about tonight (with Pedro Martinez and Bobby Orr in the house) but the B's hardly gave them anything to truly appreciate and savor.

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