Enjoy Missing The Playoffs Montreal

Let me be the first to say: smell you later Montreal, enjoy not making the playoffs this season.

The Boston Bruins did their best to end the regular season series with their biggest rival positively as they won 4-3 in a shootout tonight at the Bell Centre.

Boston (35-18-2) was in control, up 3-1 heading into the third but credit Montreal (23-25-10) for rallying with two goals and forcing overtime. However, the Bruins got the last laugh as Tyler Seguin scored the only shootout goal and Tim Thomas (26 saves; 24-11-0) stopped all three Canadiens shooters.

After losing the first two in October, the B's won the final four against the Habs. It was standard procedure that the finale had to feature some batshit crazy incidents. For instance, four goaltender interference penalties were called in the second (two on each team). Montreal fans proved that they're still the worst in the NHL as they cheered when a puck hit Zdeno Chara in the face, causing him to get stitches. Frankly, I am happy to say goodbye to those clowns who fell to eight points out of the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference.

Besides the two points, the best part about the victory for Boston was that so many guys that had been cold woke up and made big plays. Just look at who scored the goals: Andrew Ference, Benoit Pouliot and Patrice Bergeron. In short, it was a great way to start their longest road trip of the season.

After Adam McQuaid and Ryan White traded heavy punches, Ference (5th of the season) made it 1-0 at 17:09 of the first from Brad Marchand (more on him later).

Mathieu Darche (5th of the season) tied it at 1 with a shorthanded tally (first one Boston had allowed this season, the last team to give one up) at 1:39 of the second. He drove to the net and P.K. Subban put it on his stick for the redirection.

Pouliot (9th of the season) pulled off a typical Pouliot move: amazing and completely out of nowhere. He put the puck through a Montreal player's legs than put it through Carey Price's (31 saves) legs. Chris Kelly and Rich Peverley had the assists.

At 14:33, Bergeron (17th of the season) increased the lead to 3-1 as he roofed a tough angle shot over Price. The power play goal was assisted by Seguin and Chara.

The second period ended with some more controversy about a Marchand hit. He clipped Alexei Emelin not as blatantly as the one in the Canucks game, but he'll likely be hearing from Brendan Shanahan again.

The Canadiens almost rallied for an epic win as Max Pacioretty (24th of the season) snuck a shot by Thomas at 3:34 and Erik Cole (22nd of the season) tied it at 11:12 thanks to Chara's mind-numbing giveaway.

It was an ugly game but the Bruins got the job done which is all that matters after they were completely outplayed last night against the Rangers. Up next, Boston travels to Winnipeg on Friday. The Jets beat the B's in Winnipeg back in December (2-1 on Dec. 6) but Boston paid them back with a 5-3 win Jan. 10 at the Garden.

There is no question that Tuukka Rask will get the start since Thomas played the last two nights, something which doesn't often happen. Unfortunately, it looks like Peverley will miss some time since he left with a knee injury tonight and never returned. Hopefully it's not too serious.

UPDATE 2/16: Peverley was sent home for further examination. He was injured on a knee to knee hit by former Bruin Hal Gill.

Marchand will not be fined or suspended for his hit which apparently was enough of a hip check to only merit a two-minute penalty. Still, with less than a second on the clock and the puck far away from Boston's goal, he needs to be a little smarter than that.

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Why do we even bother?

Before Game 2 had even started, the Boston Bruins were already cooked. Zdeno Chara spent Friday night in a hospital due to dehydration and he was a last-minute scratch for last night's pivotal game at TD Garden.

Some teams might use their Captain's absence as motivation but oh no, not our Bruins. The most fragile team in the NHL and maybe all of sports completely folded under the pressure (as always) and fell flat on their face in a depressing as hell 3-1 loss.

Montreal now leads the series 2-0 as it shifts to the Bell Centre for Game 3 tomorrow night.

All five goals that the Canadiens have scored so far in the first two games are direct results of egregious turnovers by the Bruins in their own end.

To make matters worse, Boston spotted Montreal two goals last night in the first 2:20 of the first period. After Game 1's debacle, I said Game 2 would be all about the first goal.

Well 43 seconds in and Mike Cammalleri scored from James Wisniewski. At 2:20, Montreal was on a power play when Mathieu Darche scored from Cammalleri.

You couldn't possibly script a worse beginning and just like that, the Bruins were done in the game and probably the series. They've never won a series (in 26 tries) after being down 0-2.

Carey Price is a good goaltender but the Bruins are making him look the second coming of Patrick Roy and Dominik Hasek. Price stopped 34 shots but once again, Boston failed to get bodies in front of him or capitalize on the few rebounds he allowed.

He made one spectacular save as he robbed Milan Lucic with his glove after Looch was set up right in front of the net.

On the flip side, can we agree that Tim Thomas is simply a regular season monster? Much like Claude Julien is a regular season coach? Up to this point, how can we say that either does anything but pee down their leg in the playoffs?

The Bruins finally got on the board with their first goal of the series at 7:38 of the second period as Brad Marchand fed a perfect tip in to Patrice Bergeron. Mark Recchi also assisted.

Unfortunately, all that hard work was nullified by Thomas (23 saves) who gave up a juicy rebound right to Yannick Weber. He scored at 17:21 of the second period from Lars Eller and Roman Hamrlik. That was it, you knew the Bruins had absolutely no chance to recover from that.

Honestly, they are done. Short of Julien being fired today and Tuukka Rask getting the surprise start in Game 3, I don't see how this team can overcome all their playoff shortcomings. The Canadiens are playing with more desperation and heart while the Bruins continue to add new head-scratching chapters to their pathetic legacy.