Hello boys and girls, welcome back to another installment of this blog series following the events of the Bruins and their 2015-16 season. Last week I decided my post would be better used to discuss some of the issues I have had with the Department of Player Safety and their incompetence when it comes to handing out supplementary punishment. It is an issue that I believe goes even deeper than the spearing incident that occurred a couple weeks ago and I may revisit the topic in a longer post in the future. For now however, lets talk about how the Bruins have collected points in 12 of their last 13 games and are now second in the Atlantic division and gaining ground fast on the Montreal Canadiens.
After the Thanksgiving break and Black Friday game the Bruins traveled to the western most regions of Canada to do battle with some of the most mediocre teams in the league. Feeling confident after a gut-check style win over the Rangers, I myself saw nothing less than 6 points out of 6 coming from this road trip. However the team seemed to think they could gather these points with almost no regard for quality of play, which is something the Bruins seem to have done a bit too often this year for my liking. The Bruins barely seemed to be awake for their first game against the Oilers and it showed as, although they held the lead in shots most of the game, they trailed the Oilers 2-1 late into the third period. Only thanks to a late goal by captain Zdeno Chara were the Bruins able to force overtime, which led to a shootout which led to a disappointing loss for the black and gold. The lackluster play continued into Calgary as the Bruins played one of their most defensively lax game of the season. Although the Bruins had a 4-3 lead with less than a minute to go, a late penalty on Chara led to a 6 on 4 situation and Calgary was able to tie the game with 1.3 second left in regulation. Johhny Guadreau did what he usually does which was magically stick handle behind the defense in OT and score the game winner assisted by none other than Douglas Hamilton. At this point many Bruins fans were groaning at the prospect of flushing what should have been easy points down the toilet that was this road trip. Thankfully, the Bruins came out swinging in Vancouver and pummeled the already bruised and lackadaisical Canucks by a score of 4-0. That win singlehandedly turned what could have been an awful 2 point 3 game swing into a 4 point swing and gave the Bruins some confidence heading back home.
This confidence however was met and equally matched by a defensively adept Nashville Predators team that was able to skate circles around a seemingly jet-lagged Bruins team. Even still, the Bruins made a game of it, only losing by a score of 3-2 on a late goal by Nashville. This loss set the team back on the road for an extremely important meeting between the Bruins and the Habs. This being the last meeting before the winter classic, both teams wanted to be the ones to carry momentum heading forward into the month that could see the Atlantic division turned sideways by the time January rolls around. Although the Bruins came out flat in the first 2 periods, a stellar effort by Tuukka Rask kept the game 1-0 until midway into the third period where Loui Eriksson scores a shorthanded goal off a beautiful pass by Chara. Just 40 seconds later the Bruins scored again to make it 2-1 with only 7 minutes to go in the game. With a goal by Bergeron in the final 5 minutes, the Bruins walked out of the Bell Centre with their first win over the Canadiens since March of 2014 and all the momentum on their side heading into the outdoor game at Gillette on January 1st. The Bruins would then go on to win 2 of their next 3 games in convincing fashion, leap frogging their way into second place in the Atlantic with 2 games in hand on almost the entire division, meaning the Bruins could prospectively be only one point away from their arch rivals within the next couple of weeks. The Bruins have 6 more games in the month of December, 3 of which are against divisional opponents making the points in these next few games absolutely vital to the Bruins success going forward. If the team is able to continue their ever strengthening defensive play as well as scoring at a league leading clip I can very confidently see this team being atop the Atlantic division within a month. The Bruins next play against Pittsburgh on Friday.
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