Bruins choke away three goal lead…

The Boston Bruins were 23-0-0 when leading by three goals. Make that 23-1-0 after today’s unhinging debacle. The Bruins came out flying in the first period and raced to an impressive 3-0 lead in the game, the Bruins even chased the Tampa Bay Lightning’s starting goalie Dwayne Roloson who appeared to be very shaky from the game. Roloson was then replaced by Lightning backup goalie Mike Smith…I think it’s safe to say that everything was going the Bruins’ way until the 6:55 mark of the second period when the roof fell in on the Boston Bruins. Lightning forward Teddy Purcill got the Tampa Bay Lightning on the score board by scoring two quick unanswered goals. It would have been a great opportunity for the Bruins to call a time out but they did not, another #epicfail for the Bruins head coach Claude Julien.

Can’t score if don’t shoot

In my opinion I think it’s fair to say that Mike Smith was hardly challenged the by the Boston Bruins after replacing Dwayne Roloson. If you go back and watch the game you will see that Smith didn’t have to make a lot of difficult saves and most of his shots were logo killers from the Boston Bruins. The Bruins also failed to get traffic in front of the Tampa Bay Lightning net. You can’t win many games with that kind of a game plan you have to generate opportunities down low and get bodies in front of the opposition net.

Sit on the lead = #epicfail...

If this years Boston Bruins’ team has one glaring fault, it’s when they get a lead and then they try to sit on the lead and they fail to compete anymore, they go into a defensive shell which doesn’t always seem to work for them, especially against the talented offensive minded teams. The Boston Bruins can not give a talented team like the Tampa Bay Lightning grade “A” scoring opportunities in front of their net and expect the goalie to make every save, last time I check Tim Thomas was a human being and he isn't going to stop every shot that somes his way. Good teams bury grade “A” scoring chances in close off of turnovers, the defense and the forwards have to be better, they have to be smarter with the puck and get the pucks deep and get offensive opportunites between the dots. The Bruins should have kept the pressure on and continued to attack… Instead the Boston Bruins sat back and watched the Tampa Bay Lightning race by them like they were big orange road cones.

Power outage

The Boston Bruins registered an unimpressive shot total of eight shots during the third period of today’s game and it was many minutes into the third before the Bruins even registered a shot on goal. I would classify that as being unacceptable and that can’t happen if the Bruins want to win this series and advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.

While the Bruins were caught flat footed numerous times the Lightning continued to race through the neutral zone with speed attacking the Bruins net and capitalizing off the Bruins turnovers. For whatever reason the Bruins abandoned their successful game plan from game three after they got the three goal lead going into the second period… That three goal lead promptly disappeared in four short minutes with two goals from former Maine Black Bear Teddy Purcill and Sean Bergenheim. From the 6:55 minute of the second period on the Bruins also looked uninterested in playing strong defensively as well and became a turnover factory and failed to get pucks deep. There were numerous times the Bruins failed to get puck deeps and turned the puck over to the speedy offensive minded Tampa Bay Lightning.