Quote:
Originally Posted by FRED HALE SR.
This is gonna be one hell of a series indeed. Both teams looked great. I thought Boston had them last night. They let their foot off the Hawks neck too early.
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I dunno, man. I thought the Bruins got thoroughly outplayed in the 2nd and 3rd. It didn't feel like that much of the Bruins letting their foot off the gas or a big comeback or anything, it just felt like it was the result of constant Blackhawks pressure. The Bruins rebounded nicely in OT and looked like the better of the two teams for the majority of the three OT periods, but they had absolutely no finish.
The Bruins need to make some major adjustments though. They were absolutely putrid at getting the puck safely out of their zone on breakouts. I've never seen so many plays result in either the Bruins turning the puck over or icing it. Also, the Blackhawks were allowed to enter the zone way too easily on a consistent basis. Those were two areas that the Bruins excelled at against the Pens. You have to credit the Blackhawks' great team speed and their tenacious forecheck for that, but the Bruins could still have been WAY better in that regard.
Thankfully, the Bruins were able to collapse around Rask well last night to negate a lot of scoring opportunities. I also thought the Bruins were able to establish a presence in the Blackhawks d-zone very easily last night when they were in the offensive end. I thought that would be the Bruins main strength against Chicago, but their big bodies really had their way with the Blackhawks' smaller D for the most part.
The Blackhawks got some good bounces, but they also had a lot of opportunities that missed that could have gone in as well. They dominated the last 40 minutes of regulation as far as I'm concerned and the Bruins simply have to be a lot better.