Even after a game in which the Bruins could do no wrong, we’re still a long way from knowing who’ll be the team to get it all right in the end.
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Nothing much went right for the Canucks Thursday night at the Garden. Check that, nothing at all went right for the visitors from far away British Columbia.
The new-age sons of Harold Snepsts arrived on Causeway Street positioned as this season’s would-be Stanley Cup champs, parked first in the league’s standings, and left 2½ hours later in a footrace west seeking safe harbor in Detroit.
The Canucks will play the Red Wings Saturday afternoon in Motor City. It’s never good when you’re running to Detroit for anything, other than, say, an early look at the latest e-car or the scrumptious eats in Greektown. Opa!
The Bruins,
who breezed to a 4-0 win, rebounded after nothing much went right for them in a 4-1 loss Tuesday night to Calgary on home ice. Check that, nothing at all went right for them against the visitors from far away Alberta.
“Bad effort,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery summarized in hindsight, speaking to 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Bob Beers following Thursday morning’s workout. “Worst effort I’ve seen in my two years as the Bruins head coach.”
Good time here for reminder No. 1, Page 1, from the “Official NHL 82-Game Regular Season Viewer’s Guide”: Never judge a team on its worst night, especially two-thirds of the way through an interminable season.
“Next time in Vancouver,” said Montgomery, musing postgame about the two clubs meeting again Feb. 24, “we’re going to see a much different team.”
Reminder No. 2: You only really find what any team’s all about, and what any of all the puck chasing means, until the playoffs start. Bruins fans, who already were mapping a Cup parade down Boylston Street this time last season, only need review Games 5, 6, and 7 last spring against Florida. The Panthers entered the playoffs labeled as also rans and then ran roughshod over the blindsided Bruins. The beautiful season (65-12-5) disappeared faster than that ball through Bill Buckner’s legs.
“We just gave ‘em four goals,” said Canucks coach Rick Tocchet. “That’s really what it comes down to.’
“It’s a big game, a lot of eyes were on us tonight,” he added. “[The Bruins] didn’t play well their last game, the’re coach kinda called them out…they showed up and we just made some stupid mistakes.”
“I was very impressed with [defense in front of me],” Ullmark said. “We said beforehand that it wasn’t tolerable to do what we did last game, and the guys really took it to heart.”
It was “absolutely” the bounce-back game that Jim Montgomery was looking for.
“I just cared about how tenacious and aggressive we were going to be mentally and go out and try and force the issue and I thought we did that, and I thought our penalty kill led us that way,” the Bruins coach said.