A Win, Though Unconvincing, for the Boston Bruins

Dennis Seidenberg, der Held in der letzten Minute. Translation: Dennis Seidenberg, the hero at the last minute. That’s exactly what he was for the Boston Bruins, scoring a goal from far away as the third period against the Ottawa Senators came to a close and it looked like overtime would become a necessity.

But then, just like he did to break a third-period tie against the Sens at the end of January 2012, he took a shot from far away, one that eluded Robin Lehner and made him quite literally hopping mad. Then the Bruins, who had not exactly been performing at their best for most of the preceding 59 minutes, held on tightly to that lead and took away a 2-1 win for their 11th straight road win in Scotiabank Place.

This may have been the most unconvincing of all the Bruins’ unconvincing wins so far this season. The first period lagged, the second was occasionally bad and the power play, perhaps unsurprisingly, was just sad. The power play awarded after the scrum in which a bunch of Senators swarmed David Krejci, who’s not exactly operating at 100 percent but still trying, was especially bad and featured no shots on goal at all. Thankfully for the team, Anton Khudobin was solid in net, sometimes looking like the best player out there.

At one point, even Jack and Brick were calling out Milan Lucic‘s lack of performance on the air. He hasn’t been great lately, but he seemed especially off tonight, flubbing and creating juicy giveaways–he definitely earned that call-out from the NESN crew.

Once again, the Bruins were charitable and allowed an opposing player to earn his first: in this case, Kaspars Daugavins–he of the strange shootout move–found the back of the net for the first time this season to start the scoring. But the hardworking Daniel Paille tied it up right before the end of that same period, which is where it remained until Seidenberg the hero struck in the third.

For much of the night, it was just frustrating to watch Boston: they seemed out of it, a shadow of their usual selves, not performing as well as they could. Missed opportunities, failed chances and so on–you name it, they did it. The third line was an absolute mess. Rich Peverley was a healthy scratch, causing the whispers of a trade on the horizon, but I like to think that was done just so Ryan Spooner could get his debut in his hometown. That being said, Peter Chiarelli might be cooking up a trade right now, although that just remains to be seen.

So despite the win, the team out there still didn’t look like the Bruins for most of it. As they move on to Toronto for the first half of a home-and-home against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday afternoon, there will surely be some well-deserved discussions about stepping up, reclaiming the team identity and such. Here’s hoping it sticks.

 

Emma Harger is a Boston Bruins and NHL writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow her on Twitter, like her on Facebook and add her to your network on Google.