It was not easy, and it certainly was not pretty, but that has never been the Bruin way. The Bruins represent a city and a fan base that takes pride in toughing it out and embraces being the underdog. These are the same people who dutifully stood by the Red Sox for eighty-six long years between championships. Ever since standing their ground at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, the people of Massachusetts have been defined by their resilience and two-hundred something blizzard filled winters have not kept them from leaving. Just as Bostonians kept coming back to the Sox and Patriots after years of disappointment, they stood by the Bruins in the good times of Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, and Johnny Bucyk, the bad times of Joe Thornton, P.J. Stock, and Andrew Raycroft, and the present times, sometimes brilliant, sometimes pathetic, of Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, and Tuuka Rask. There were times this season where I was frustrated and mad at the team, but sticking with them makes it all the more rewarding when they do play well. This is something fair weather fans will never realize.
It was not until Game 6, the series clinching game, that the Bruins were the first team to score. Buffalo scored first in each of the first five games, but the Bruins kept rallying back. Prior to game six, Boston had the lead for nineteen minutes of the entire series, scoring winning goals in the third period in Games 2 and 3 and winning in sudden death overtime in Game 4. Defense and the phenomenal play of rookie goalie Tuuka Rask kept them in the series.
The defining moment for the series, I believe, was Johnny Boychuk's hit on Matt Ellis in Game 3. Boychuk leveled Ellis on a clean open ice hit that brought the crowd at the TD Garden to their feet. It is not often in hockey that something other than a goal or a fight gets a crowd that excited, but that was one of them. That hit defined the way the Bruins would play throughout the series.
The Bruins kicked it into high gear for this series and everyone on the roster made contributions in the series against Buffalo. Dennis Wideman and Matt Hunwick, two defensemen who had been playing poorly most of the year, had significantly stepped up their game once the regular season ended. Wideman, the Boston media's whipping boy throughout the season, played very well when the Bruins were behind in games and helped them get back in. A moth ago, I would have been shocked if someone told me that Claude Julien would put Wideman and Hunwick on the ice at the same time in the playoffs, but I would have been even more shocked if someone told me they were playing really well together in the playoffs.
Another player who deserves recognition is Mark Recchi. In this series, Recchi became the third oldest player in history to score in the playoffs at the age of 42. Recchi also made a great hit followed by a pass to a wide open Patrice Bergeron to set up a key goal. He has been playing as well as anybody in the NHL in his advanced years.
Things only seem to be looking up for the Bruins in the future. In the upcoming draft, Boston will be able to select either Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin with the second overall pick. Both players have superstar potential, but I am willing to bet they both would rather play for a playoff team right out of the gate like Boston instead of the Edmonton Oilers, who had the league's worst record this season.
In the next round, the B's will play either the Pittsburgh Penguins in a rematch of the infamous game where Matt Cooke took out Marc Savard, or the Philadelphia Flyers in a rematch of this year's Winter Classic. Savard might be ready to play by then, and I hope to see that he gets his personal retribution against Cooke if they play the Penguins. The next series will be tough, but the Bruins are a team that expects it to be tough and they will hopefully play the same brand of hockey they used to defeat the Sabres.
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