Boston Bruins Week in Review: So Long, Regular Season

An Off Week

The Boston Bruins’ regular 2013 season could’ve ended a little better, that’s for sure. Aside from one two-goal shutout against a team that was already not remotely bound for the playoffs, they lost every single game of the final week, including the one that had been rescheduled due to the Boston manhunt. In fact, when the final horn sounded and the regular season officially ended, they’d lost seven of their final nine games and had fans questioning their ability to make a deep playoff run. That will be discussed in detail in another article—this is just a focus on their final week of the regular season.

Following a 3-0 shutout win, the Bruins traveled to Philadelphia to meet the Philadelphia Flyers, another team that definitely had no chance of making the postseason. Despite Wade Redden and David Krejci scoring, the faltering Flyers found a way and put up a 5-2 victory.

The one upside of this down week came when Tuukka Rask got a 2-0 shutout over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Dennis Seidenberg and Daniel Paille provided the goals, another pattern of a defenseman and a forward each providing a single tally.

But then the team traveled one more time for this regular season, going to Washington on the one-year anniversary of that knockout Game 7, and they looked like they just might be able to turn things around and keep up the momentum from their last win. But the Washington Capitals nabbed three power play goals, one in overtime, to yank a 3-2 win after the Bruins had gone up 2-0.

The regular season ended not with a bang, but a whimper as Boston went down 4-2 to the Ottawa Senators, watching as the visitors found the back of the net twice after they’d managed to come back and tie it.

Everything changes in the playoffs, though, so here’s hoping this team can make the necessary changes and have a good long playoff run.

Flat Against the Flyers

It was recently revealed that Jaromir Jagr played through a developing flu so he could be in this game against one of his former teams. But even though he wasn’t at his best, he was still a darn sight better than a lot of his teammates in this 5-2 defeat. Scott Hartnell took a lead early in the first and Redden tied it up (with help from Jagr) to end the first period on a hopeful note.

After Anton Khudobin was torched for two extremely quick and flukey goals in the second period, he was taken out as the Bruins tried to staunch the bleeding—and, in the process, Rask allowed another goal, Boston scored one more, then the Flyers retook an even bigger lead and—in short, this game was a mess.

One Bright Spot

Perhaps the only good part of this final week was the 2-0 shutout against Tampa Bay. Rask was told by coach Claude Julien to be prepared to play this game after that atrocity against Philly, but he sure did answer the call! He turned away 30 shots, kept Steven Stamkos off the scoresheet and also kept Martin St. Louis silent too. Paille scored his 10th goal of the season and Seidenberg his third.

Lost in Washington

Milan Lucic seemed to actually be playing like his old self again, scoring a goal (off the faceoff) for the first time in quite some time. Another oft-mediocre player this season, Andrew Ference (pictured), gave the Bruins a two-goal lead by the end of 40. But it’s often been said that the hardest lead to hold is a two-goal lead, and the Capitals have the league’s best power play, and suddenly the penalties started coming practically in droves against Boston—well, it’s kind of obvious what can happen, right? The game-winner from Eric Fehr came in overtime as one of the Bruins’ best penalty killers, Zdeno Chara, sat in the box.

Sure, it wasn’t as painful as the OT loss that ended Boston’s dreams of repeat championships, but it was still pretty bad.

To End the Season

Remember the fact that a two-goal lead is hard to hold? Ottawa had a 2-0 lead and was about to leave the second period with it, but Rich Peverley (another underachiever) struck fast and Seidenberg tied it up at the start of the third to give the home fans some hope for a comeback. Once again, this hope fell rather short and the Senators scored a late-third goal to take back the lead, plus an empty-netter to drive the stake in further. Thus, the 4-2 loss was secured and the Bruins now find themselves playing the Cinderella story of the 2013 playoffs, the Toronto Maple Leafs. This—could get interesting.