WOW! In all capital letters. I cannot believe what the Bruins were able to pull off on Saturday night against arguably the worst team in the National Hockey League. The Bruins pulled off the unthinkable as they overcame a 3 goal deficit with less than 10 minutes to play to pull out a come from behind 4-3 shootout victory over the New York Islanders. The first surprise-but-not-really-surprise was seeing Tuukka Rask lead the Bruins out onto the ice for pregame warmup, which indicated that he would get the start between the pipes. I had been curious to see if Claude Julien would make this move since he indicated that Rask would have to wait his turn due to his work ethic, or lack thereof, in practice. Tim Thomas, however, needed a seat on the bench; I know it's only been three games, but Thomas needed to take a step back.
Tuukka stood on his head in the first period as the Bruins were shorthanded for a good portion of the first period; he made 16 saves, including many pivotal ones, on the man advantage. The Bruins showed more signs of team unity as Islanders leftwinger Sean Bergenheim checked Marc Savard head first into the boards; right after Savard took the hit, Andrew Ference went after Bergenheim and started whaling away as Islander defenseman Radek Martinek jumped in. Martinek never got third man in, which really confused me. Ference was only penalized with a 2 minute minor for roughing. The Bruins and Islanders went into the room scoreless after 1.
The Islanders got on the board first as Jon Sim took the feed from Kyle Okposo in the slot and wristed one right past Tuukka Rask. The Islanders weren't done as Radek Martinek took the feed from 2009 #1 overall pick John Tavares, waited a few seconds for Rask to commit, and put it off the crossbar and in right over Tuukka's stick. The Islanders finished off the second period scoring as former Boston University Terrier Freddy Meyer sent a pass up the boards to John Tavares and Tavares snapped it off top shelf with a very impressive snapshot to make it 3-0. The Bruins were rightfully booed off the ice in the second period. Bruins defenseman Dennis Wideman was injured in the second period and never returned, forcing the Bruins to roll out a 5 man defenseman unit, leaving the door open for Johnny Boychuk to get his chance.
The Bruins came out for the third period on just about a whole 2 minute powerplay but failed to generate anything, which is a very concerning matter this early in the season. To my knowledge, they have only four powerplay goals on the season and they all came in the same game, last Saturday versus Carolina. With 8 minutes left in regulation, Marc Savard broke up the shutout by firing a wrist shot from the right face off dot and locating it top shelf to put the Bruins on the board. I was so disgusted with their play thus far that I didn't even get out of my seat to stand and clap. I just rolled my eyes and looked to the ceiling and said "THANK GOD!" The last thing I wanted to do was see the Bruins get shutout by the Islanders. The Bruins made things more interesting as Byron Bitz brought the crowd to its feet as he made an incredible individual effort by stickhandling through a crowd while doing a pair of wet and backhanded one through the legs of goalie Dwayne Roloson to close the gap to 1. But the Bruins weren't done! Blake Wheeler threw one back to the left point to Matt Hunwick, and Hunwick waited a few seconds before firing a floating wristshot that had eyes as it went top corner to tie the game at 3, bringing the Garden crowd to its feet!
The Bruins and Islanders battled through an up and down overtime before it led to a shootout. The Bruins, as the home team, elected to shoot first. Blake Wheeler went in on Roloson and faked him out on a nice goal. The Islanders sent Rob Schremp out; he barely scored as Tuukka Rask kind of forced the puck into the net to tie the shootout at 1. Patrice Bergeron and Richard Park were both denied before Marc Savard, who has typically lacked success in previous shootout opportunities, backhanded a goal home. The game was in the hands of Kyle Okposo to try to tie the shootout and force a sudden death shootout, but Tuukka came up with a great save and raised his hands to the air in celebration. It was 2 points, but 2 impressive points!
I was thinking of leaving early since the Bruins didn't really play the first 52 minutes, but the two kids that I sat next to kept me there. In the first period, the kid next to me started singing "Goodbye Horses," which is from Silence of the Lambs during the Buffalo Bill dancing scene. The fact that someone was singing that song absolutely impressed me, which engaged us into a great Silence of the Lambs discussion. The kid said he wanted to do the Buffalo Bill dance the next time the camera man came to our section to get on the Jumbotron. I told him he should tuck in his dick, and he looked at me, replied, "Automatic, Dude!" and slapped me five. Another funny thing about him was that he and his buddy are the founders of www.pleasesellthebruins.com, and they recognized me because I am apparently on their website wearing my infamous "Worst Management in Sports....it's called Bruins" t-shirt. They were so excited to meet me that it got me a free beer. They said I was a cult hero and were also aware of my 2006 Boston Globe business section article, the article in which Jacobs and Sinden insisted that all my quotes were pulled or else the Globe would lose their advertising rights in the Garden. They said Jacobs tried sueing them for their website, but everything was copyrighted and linked, and there was no slander. They did, however, share a great story about how they were sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in the parking garage underneath the Garden and they ran around putting PleaseSellTheBruins bumper stickers on as many cars as they could. These boys were the only entertainment I had till the Bruins' epic comeback!
The Line Combinations were as follows...
- Milan Lucic-Marc Savard-Marco Sturm
- Blake Wheeler- David Krejci- Michael Ryder
- Mark Recchi-Patrice Bergeron-Chuck Kobasew
- Shawn Thornton-Steve Begin-Byron Bitz
- Zdeno Chara-Derek Morris
- Dennis Wideman-Andrew Ference
- Mark Stuart-Matt Hunwick
Scoring Summary...
- NYI: Jon Sim assisted by Rob Shremp and Kyle Okposo (PPG)
- NYI: Radek Martinek assisted by Mark Streit and John Tavares
- NYI: John Tavares assisted by Freddy Meyer
- BOS: Marc Savard assisted by Milan Lucic and Zdeno Chara
- BOS: Byron Bitz assisted by Steve Begin and Matt Hunwick
- BOS: Matt Hunwick assisted by Andrew Ference and Blake Wheeler
Bruins goal videos...
- Savard - Dancing bear
- Bitz - Wedding Crashers popping the champage scene
- Hunwick - Napoleon Dynamite dancing scene
Warmup Music...
- AC/DC - "Back in Black"
- POD - "Boom"
- Drowning Pool - "Bodies"
- Nirvana - "Breed"
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