Thursday, January 24, 2013

Thoughts on the Bruins Rangers Game

The Bruins' defense and defensive play were shoddy at times. Even the normally flawless Patrice Bergeron made a couple glaring mistakes.

The Bruins penalty kill was amazing; their power play not so much. I'm pretty sure their shots-on-goal-per-power-play was fewer than their shots-on-goal-per-penalty-kill.

The Bruins were good at faceoffs; the Rangers not so much. However, it was clear that the Rangers anticipated this. Even though Bruins won faceoffs by an incredible margin of 36 to 17, the Rangers were the ones hustling to the puck. It was like the Bruins wingers and defensemen were surprised and hesitant every time the puck came to them, which allowed the Rangers in on possession.

Speaking of faceoffs, and the Bruins winning them, I should note that the Bruins really take advantage of having a solid core of good faceoff centers who can play wing. Take the third line of Peverley-Kelly-Bourque?, every time Kelly (80%), got kicked out of the circle, Peverley (67%) stepped in to win the draw. Tyler Seguin was even taking some draws and winning them. Since he is a natural center, it's good to see that the Bruins are giving him some opportunities to develop those responsibilities and improve his versatility. That said, it has been pointed out that sometimes the Bruins' strategy is to have Seguin line up for the draw, intentionally violate the circle, and switch with Bergeron. The refs nearly never call faceoff violation a second time, so this is oh-so-crafty on important draws.

Rangers finally came to play, as I suspected they would. They were lethargic and confusing in their first two games. Taylor Pyatt is doing very well for them.

Many Rangers fans were upset that Kreider was benched. A lot of their resentment stemmed from the fact that Michael Del Zotto, or Del-Zaster as they call him, is "never punished for making constant mistakes", and the seemingly uneven distribution of punitive measures. I have no opinion on this, other than believing, based on severely limited information, that Torts is a firm but fair coach.

Considering how the game started (down 2-0 early in the game), it was a hard-earned loser-point by the Bruins. Once the Bruins started scoring and kept the game close, it was an entertaining game as well. I made some acquaintances with other Bruins fans, and my favorite Rangers STH neighbor Tony and I had good fun and good conversation as always.

Warmup Pictures:

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