What Struggles? Bruins breeze past Maple Leafs 6-2
What a difference a game can make. I have to admit after the Thornton fight just 1:54 into the game I thought it was going to be more of the same from the Bruins. My suspicions weren’t eased when David Steckel potted the first goal of the game for the Leafs at 7:29 into the first.
But this would pretty much be it for the Leafs in this game. The Bruins seemed to right the ship from this point on evening the score on a power play goal from Nathan Horton at 10:32 in the first. But that wasn’t it for the Bruins power play.
They were able to pot the go ahead goal less than six minutes later after the Leaf’s Lupul took a tripping penalty. This led to a slap shot from the right circle from Zdeno Chara blasting past Jonas Gustavsson leading to the belief that Chara should have a minimum distance set by the league before he can unload a slap shot. But seriously, you can’t blame Gustavsson on this one, a slap shot from that close from that man is next to impossible to stop. Chara made a good play on working himself lower in the zone and was able to one time the shot off a Andrew Ference pass.
Chris Kelly, Milan Lucic, Patrice Bergeron and Tyler Seguin all added to the Bruins lead without giving up another goal until Grabovski of the Leafs scored an all but meaningless goal at 12:32 in the third.
More importantly, the Bruins were able to play more focused and stayed away from the stupid play. I understand that Thornton was out there fighting to get them pumped up but so far I think the Bruins have been too pumped up. They needed to settle down. After the Thornton fight, what happened? The Maple Leafs scored. The Bruins were able to regain their control and dominate the Leafs on the scoreboard where it mattered. They didn’t take stupid penalties… well at least not as many and were able to kill them all off.
The Bruins offense managed 43 shots in the game and probably could of potted a few more. TIm Thomas stopped 26 of 28 shots including a few break aways from turnovers.
Bruins converted two of five on the power play which almost deserves a standing ovation after the clown shoes it has been so far this year. But it was the Maple Leafs and if you need a pick me up I might suggest playing the Leafs. Phil Kessel has started off strong but was held scoreless against the Bruins.
Bruins play the Sharks tomorrow night in the TD Gardens and the Sharks are looking more like chum this year so far. Should be good for the Bruins if they can keep the same time of play against aging ‘Jumbo’ Joe Thornton, who of course has a past with the Bruins.
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