I wanted a Cup this year,still so sad.
All of us did... it sucks. I honestly believe if we play any Eastern Conference team other than Montreal in the 2nd round, we go on to represent the East and possibly get that Cup.
The Habs just don't match up well against us, and they had the confidence of winning the season series 3-1 (i know regular season does not matter like with Pitt last year, but it can still be a mental factor to give confidence to an underdog like MTL)... and their constant diving/embellishing essentially helped lose the B's a series they should have won.
First, the Habs milked a bunch of ridiculous calls that even had Pierre and the rest of the NBC crew baffled by the officiating. Second, not only did their PP kill us, but the fear of going to the box made this team -- as Brick would say -- "not play to their identity".
When games are close and hard-fought, any apprehension or fear of getting whistled for a penalty makes for an out-of-sync team that has allowed their Acadamy Award-worthy opponents -- as well as the referees that they
alwaysgive the benefit of the doubt to -- get into their heads and affect their game on-ice.
The series was unfortunate. I don't remember being so pissed off about a series since the epic 3-0 (then 3-0 again in a game 7 that should never have been necessary) collapse to the Flyers. This year's team was special... very few holes and they never lose more than two in a row the entire season.
One of the best Bruins teams in recent memory, IMO even superior to the Cup-winning team but just less lucky... sometimes you need to get a few bounces to go your way to win. The B's had no puck luck at all and you need that when your top forwards like Krejci and Marchand cannot score a single goal.
Rask didn't make the big saves he needed to, but he played well enough to give the team a chance. The KIL line (Iggy's goals were nice but his overall play was unimpressive, his age showed) let this team down big-time. They needed to contribute more offensively if Rask was to be outplayed by Price. Blaming Tuukka is a cop-out, regardless.
A combination of the Habs sneaky head-games and the refs totally falling into MTL's gameplan with profoundly inconsistent officiating is a major reason why the B's couldn't win that series. Even with all that, if Brad or DK -- or even Bergy, Eriksson, Yeti, Smith -- can pot one (or one more for the later mentions) then all the ref talk and the theories about Tuukka's daughter's birth distracting him does not happen because we
win the series like we were supposed to.
A team with this "Big Bad Bruins" mentality was very effective, and you'd think even more effective come playoff time. But the league is moving away from rewarding physical-style teams... instead they punish them by allowing special teams to weigh heavily on the result of HUGE PLAYOFF GAMES
A team simply cannot play like they're afraid to get called to the penalty box and expect to win. They came out of gate dominant and should have won Game One, but they lost and get themselves into a predicament which the B's then seemed to have overcome to make it a 3-2 series lead despite all that had gone wrong.
Then they choked on the last two chances they had to knock the Habs off. It sucks, but we still have a solid core to build around and some solid prospects that can either be used as trade bait and/or to improve our roster moving forward.
The B's FO needs to try to keep both Soderberg and DK down the middle (regardless of the latter's poor playoff showing) even if it comes at the expense of not bringing Iggy back, should Iggy play hardball with Chia this offseason. He'll probably want a 2-year deal but IMO Chia should only do that if Iggy is willing to take something of a slight "hometown" discount.
The positive is that Eriksson raised his game during the playoffs, nothing spectacular but at least he didn't lay an egg. And Soderberg is who we thought he'd be... a keeper. We just need some wings that can finish his nice passes. Having a big center who can really make plays and protect the puck as well as anyone on the team along the boards, it is quite the luxury.
Anyhow i am done now. Oh, and Merlot is no longer close to the best 4th line in hockey anymore... those days are over and Merlot proved to be a glaring liability against a quick, opportunistic team like the Habs. We need a more effective 4th line that at least poses a modest threat to score here and there.
KIL and Merlot were the worst of the forwards, plus Marchand who missed more empty nets this postseason than i ever want to see from any Bruins player ever. The blame goes mostly to them, and of course the inexperience of our D-corps but i put more of this on the forwards despite Miller not looking like his usual sturdy self and Bart making some ill-timed miscues (Krug at least makes up for his with his playmaking).
DK will be fine, i am not worried about him. If there's a silver lining, it's that his leverage when negotiating a new contract has been somewhat diminished. He knows he failed when it mattered most, and as a fan i can only hope that this failure helps make it more possible to retain BOTH Krejci and Yeti.
Let's hope they right the ship and things fall into place next year.
