Bye Bye Bruins Hello Offseason

The Bruins title defense came to an abrupt halt last night in the form of a game 7 loss at home against the 7^th seeded Washington Capitals. Even though he’s had a down year for the most part, I know 38 goals and 27 assists doesn’t seem very ‘down’ but when you’re Alexander Ovechkin it is, if you’d told me before the Eastern Conference’s first round started that the Bruins would hold Ovie to 2 goals and 3 assists I’d make the assumption the Bruins won in 6 or maybe 5 games. That assumption would’ve been totally mistaken because the Bruins top line didn’t show up thru the first 3 games of the series and the Capitals captured lightning in a bottle in the form of rookie 3^rd string G Braden Holtby. In the end the Capitals simply outskated the Bruins for a majority of the series and earned a hard fought round 1 victory and scored a huge upset for their franchise. For years it tended to be the high seeded Caps who would get knocked out early, see: Tampa Bay Lightning sweep Capitals in 2011 Conference Quarterfinals, but this year the Capitals were the ones delivering the fatal blow.

As far as the Bruins are concerned well they should be worried about the fact that the top two lines produced diddlysquat with top scorer Tyler Seguin only chalking up 3 points (2 goals, 1 assist) and those two goals occurring in OT of game 6 and as the Bruins lone goal in game 7. I know he’s only 20 years old but if Seguin plans on becoming an elite talent on the same level as Ovechkin, Crosby, and Malkin then he needs to carry his team’s offense when others are unable. David Krejci also didn’t play like the playmaker that we all know, as Bruins fans, that he can be when he wants to be. In last years postseason Krejci chalked up 12 goals and 11 assists over 25 games, in this postseason? 1 goal and 2 assists during the Bruins/Caps matchup. It is unacceptable for your top line center to not put up at least a point per game during the NHL’s second season.

In my eyes no one was more disappointing though then LW Milan Lucic. For the second straight postseason he didn’t show up in the first round recording 0 goals after a 26 goal regular season. Lucic didn’t play his role as bruiser, enforcer, and goal scorer against the Capitals in round 1 and it hurt the Bruins. The Bruins were left looking for offense in unattractive places like the 4^th line and in their defensive pairings. For a team that ranked 2^nd in goals per game during the regular season only scoring 15 goals in a 7 game series was simply unacceptable. This loss isn’t on the defense or even Tim Thomas but the Bruins top two lines. My final thoughts on how the Bruins lost are pretty simple: the Bruins were outskated a majority of the series and were out muscled by a notoriously weaker Capitals team. The Bruins didn’t push around the Caps early and show the Caps that they were the better team and as the old adage goes if you let bad teams hang around they will beat you. The Caps aren’t a great team and had a 3^rd string rookie goalie in net but the Bruins didn’t bury them early and the Capitals took advantage.

With the offseason starting early for the Bruins, GM Peter Chiarelli and President Cam Neely are going to be forced to make a decision on the future of their goaltending position. Tim Thomas is 38 years old and though he played very well throughout this past regular season and had a pretty good series against the Caps it might be time to start passing the baton to youngster Tuuka Rask. Rask is a restricted free agent and I think he’ll definitely be in the fold next year moving forward but if the Bruins don’t show him the love financially and start to show him that they truly believe he is the future netminder of the franchise you can expect him to start to get antsy and possible become a stink bomb in the locker room.

Rask is the ultimate competitor and I doubt he wants to continue to ride the pine with multiply starting opportunities available around the NHL. I’m not saying get rid of Thomas I’m just saying it might be time to move closer to a 50/50 time share or even a 55/45 Rask split. What Tim Thomas did for this town last year was unreal. He had the best postseason a goaltender has had in recent history and that’ll never be forgotten. He single handedly delivered the Cup back to the Hub after a 39-year absence but it’s time to see what the future truly holds and if Rask can be the guy to bring the Cup back to Boston in the next 10 to 15 years. On a side note: as a fan if you expected Thomas to repeat his regular season from last year or his postseason run from 2011 then you were dreaming. That kind of goaltending magic can’t be repeated on a year-to-year basis it’s just physically impossible.

Before wrapping this up and sending you over to the second blog post of the day about the Patriots draft options I want to point out an interesting fact that came about from the Bruins/Capitals first round matchup: this was the first 7 game series in NHL history to have all 7 games decided by a single goal. Great stat Tim Kurkjian style right there too bad the Bruins went 3-4 in those 7 games.

Check out my Patriots draft day breakdown right here: http://vfromthecouch.blogspot.com/2012/04/addressing-patriots-draft-day-needs.html

Geoff Jablonski