Saturday afternoon was an excellent "reboot" game. The Bruins were coming off of a wretched 5-2 loss to Tampa. Their power play was impotent, their defense shaky, and they had fallen to .500 on home ice.
But I'm not going to get too amazed by this. The Bruins played a West Coast team at 1:30 in the afternoon. A 9th place West Coast team. And as good as the Bruins looked, the Flames looked equally as awful.
The B's power play unit simply toyed with a sluggish Calgary PK. They were allowed to move the puck at will, and the Flames failed to fill the shooting lanes. Seidenberg, Krejci, and Chara all scored on the power play. The Bruins had only 4 PP goals in March, and they nearly doubled that total in an afternoon.
Thomas was in net, and earned his 5th shutout of the season. He was outstanding. It's almost as if he performs better when expectations for him drop to below certain level. Or maybe it's when he has to compete for his job. Rask is still the clear #1 (right now), but with back-to-back games on Monday and Tuesday, Thomas should get more time in net.
The fans voted Milan Lucic the player of last week. But it should have been Krejci. He's finally playing like he did last year, quarterbacking his line, making plays for his teammates. He has 6 points (2 G, 4 A) in the last three games, and 15 points (5 G, 10 A) in his last twelve games. That's pretty impressive when Michael Ryder is your linemate.
How much of an unexpected savior has Mark Recchi been? 42 years old and he's 3rd on the team with 40 points, and 2nd with 17 goals. Three more scores and he'll have his 17th career 20 goal season. That's insane. Where would the Bruins' offense be without him?
Big game Monday night as the Sabres come to town. It's on Versus, and it could (hopefully) be a preview of the playoffs. The Bruins are technically 8th, but only 2 points behind 6th and 7th place Philly and Montreal. The B's also have 2 extra games left to play.
-The Commodore
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