I’m Shipping Off To Boston!

Once again, ladies & gentlemen, it’s playoff hockey time in Boston, and we’re kicking this shit off right.  As is tradition for April 20th, 4/20, Saturday night showdown where the Bruins smoke the Leafs. I personally couldn’t think of a better way to usher in the next installment of the best sports season of the calendar year and it just so happens to fall on my favorite holiday of the year. It’s my duty to live up to my moniker, after all!

Game One

Smoking the Leafs on 4/20 only gets sweeter when we’re talking about hockey. Obviously coming into this series these teams are pretty evenly matched on paper despite the B’s coming away with all four regular season wins. Frankly, looking at these two rosters Toronto should be favored in this one. But if we’re talking “on paper” for this series, we can’t just look at this season. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t beat us in a postseason series since 1959. To provide a frame of reference on that timing, Alabama still had an all white football team, Fidel Castro took control of Cuba, Hawaii was just becoming a state, and Vince Lombardi had just signed on to be the head coach of the Green Bay Packers. That’s a long, long time ago, and it’s been nothing but domination in favor of the spoked “B” ever since. Weather it was the improbable comeback in game seven of the 2013 series, or the back to back first round exits they suffered at our hands in ‘18 and ‘19, we’ve done nothing but drink “Toronto Tears” for the last half century and game one was no different.

        Kicking it off with eighteen thousand of the Bruin faithful screaming their heads off, fully expecting a blood bath, is a sure-fire way to get me pumped up. The boys certainly piggy-backed off that energy by getting on the board just two and a half minutes in. John Beecher (who I think is going to be a fantastic Bruin as his career continues to unfold) broke the seal early after the Leafs got a little overzealous and allowed an odd man rush where the B’s capitalized. Shortly after that Matthews, who has netted 69 goals (nice) in the regular season, clanged one off the post that should’ve been an easy one for a guy of his caliber. The boys then made it two-nil on a Brandon Carlo slap-shot where he was just WIDE OPEN. The Bruins benefitted from a few mental lapses from the Leafs in game one, including that odd man rush, the wide open Carlo shot, a couple of bad slashing/high sticking calls from some of the Leafs top guys, and just a couple of bad misses on good opportunities. Those penalties would come back to bite them in the form of two (Count ‘em, two!) Jake DeBrusk power-play goals.

A four-nil lead seemed insurmountable at that point with the garden bellowing out that ever demeaning “SAMMMMSSSSOOONNOOVVV” that they like to do when they know they’re in the head of the opposing goaltender. Toronto got a consolation goal in the third period and I hope they take that home with them as their lone goal in games one & two, but I’m sure that pipe dream is just wishful thinking.

One thing that did surprise me from the Leafs was their physical play. Coming in to this we know the Bruins are historically a more physical team and that’s no different this year. I’ve harped on Boston’s lack of star talent all year and the Leafs are full of star talent with the “Ten Million Club” they have going on these days, but the depth lines showed up in game one. If we can keep that up through game two and just see if Toronto can match our physicality for more than just a game, I think we’re gonna cruise through this series. But if Toronto is all of a sudden a whole lot sharper and those stars their paying star paying dividends, then we’re gonna be looking at a heavyweight slugfest in due time.

Game Two

Dear Jim Montgomery:
Stop overthinking the goalie decision in the playoffs.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Fan

I can’t believe we went with Ullmark over Sway. Yes, we are blessed with the best tandem in hockey. Yes, Ullmark won the Vezina last year. However, Jeremy Swayman has absolutely owned the Maple Leafs this season with a .969 save percentage in his last three against Toronto. One of the biggest parts of playing in net is getting hot and keeping that confidence rolling. Any team making a deep run to the Cup is going to need a goalie that’s on an absolute tear. I’m not going to say riding it with Ullmark completely cost us the game cuz it was close and he kept us in it, but I can’t help but think back to last year against Florida and what happened with the goaltending situation. Ride the hot hand Jim. Right now it’s Jeremy Swayman.

Now, onto the rest of the game. The Bruins started off the scoring with a Morgan Geekie power-play goal which highlights the spark that second power play unit has been bringing. We got on that power play because of another halfwittedly acted Toronto penalty. Unfortunately, Domi came right down the other end and tied it up and in the blink of an eye we’ve got a tie game. Then, with eight seconds left in the period, a beautiful tilt a whirl pass from Pavel Zacha set up the one timer by Pasta to give the Bruins a lead heading into the intermission. The first period was our best hockey of the night. Our play devolved over the night while Toronto started capitalizing on the chances they were fumbling in game one. 

The second period as a whole was pretty uneventful but incredibly chippy as the rest of the series is likely to be. The third is where everything unravels for us. The Leafs had two and possibly a THIRD goal pulled back and if we weren’t on the right side of some of those reviews we’d be talking about this game in an entirely different manner.

We were utterly dominated in the third period. We went almost ten full minutes without a shot attempt while the Leafs were pouring on scoring chance after scoring chance. Here’s where I don’t think it’s wise to blame Ullmark. He still had thirty stops and got absolutely zero support offensively for the majority of this game. I still disagree with the decision to go with him over Swayman, but I’m not taking anything away from the guy. Auston Matthews and his shitty mustache were kept quiet in game one but his three points in game two were the difference maker. He buried the go ahead goal and notched two assists on the night. We kept him in check in game one, but it was almost self inflicted like I mentioned previously in the game one review. A guy who scored sixty-nine goals in the regular season wasn’t going to miss wide open scoring opportunities two games in a row. Despite getting curb stomped for the majority of the 3rd period, the bruins were actually gifted a chance to tie it with a power play with around three minutes left to go in the game. If it weren’t for a phantom call on The Pride of Weymouth during a scrap where the Leafs punched Coyle in the face and took a stick to Marchand’s knee we somehow came out with just a five vs. four advantage. Nobody can give me a reason as to why Coyle got sent to the “Sin bin” and nobody will convince me that the refs handled that situation right. Ilya Lyubushkin was swinging over the top of the referee and they let it go on long enough to call Coyle on any late infraction. “Lyu-bushleague”. The Bruins weren’t able to capitalize on the power-play. I’d like to think they would’ve if they got the two minutes of glorious five-on-three hockey, we should have taken advantage of the opportunity. Matthews stonewalled us on a chance late where Samsonov lost sight of the puck and that was the end of that. Toronto battled back from game one and looked more like the team I expected to be facing. I obviously wish we could have picked up that 2-0 lead heading to the silent confines of Scotia Bank Arena, but we all knew this was going to be a war of attrition. 

What are your thoughts on the series thus far? Who do you have winning it all? If you have any other playoff thoughts, make sure to send them our way on Socials or come talk about it with us on the Ocho, Wednesdays at 8:00 PM EST.