by Brandt Corbin
Although they will not admit it, some of the Montreal Canadiens did want to meet the Boston Bruins in this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs. These storied franchises are complete opposites if ever there was one. You’ve got the big bad Bruins, led by Milan Lucic & Zdeno Chara. Then there is the Habs a very small, softer team with limited aggression to go to battle with Boston. So the Habs will try and make it a speedy, transition series hoping to capitalize on the power play, while the Bruins will try and make it as nasty as possible in hopes of scaring the Canadiens.
February 9th, the two teams played in Boston. It was obvious on what was the Bruins game plan right off the bat. They hammered Montreal left right and center, near the end of the first period, Lucic was in Carey Price’s crease and then punched him in the head. Five minutes into the second period, a line brawl broke out, in which Price fought Bruins netminder Tim Thomas. A 5 on 5 line brawl then occurred with seconds left in the third period. Just over 1 month later was the Max Pacioretty incident, in which Bruins captain Zdeno Chara shoved the Hab into the turnbuckle, breaking his vertebra and giving him a concussion. So one can see why this series could get tense, eventually the tempers will boil over. Despite insisting they didn’t require more toughness will the Habs now regret that decision?
Goaltending is very even, despite Thomas being a runaway winner for the Vezina trophy, (league’s best goalie). Price is more than capable himself despite not having much playoff success himself. This will be a see-saw battle, whoever steps up and makes the big save at the right time will be the winner.
Injuries will play a factor as well, Montreal has 3 de-man out, Andrei Markov and Josh Gorges are out for the season, while Alexander Picard is day to day. Jeff Halpern is not 100% but should be ready for game 1; Pacioretty is likely not playing anytime soon. Marc Savard is the only Boston player out; he has a concussion and is done for the year.
Statically the series favors the Bruins, their number 1 line of Lucic, Nathan Horton & David Krejci have combined for 6 goals and 15 assists in the last 3 games versus the Habs. On Feb 9th, the line of Scott Gomez, Lars Elller & Andrei Kosistysen where each -4, that is with the trio only playing an average of 11 minutes that game. But yet the Habs won the season series 4-2.
When it’s all said and done, if the Bruins insist on making this a backyard brawl, they better hope they can kill every other penalty they will take. That being said they do have 3 scoring lines, with one of the best 4th lines in hockey. Montreal can counter with 2 lines, but one of them will need to do with Chara night in night out.
My prediction is 6 games for Boston; they will split in bean-town, split in Montreal, with Boston winning games 5 and 6.
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