Friday, November 29, 2013

Games 25-26: Rough Stretch Nearly Complete

When a team gets on a roll and strings a few wins together, strange breaks start to go your way. 

The Boston Bruins played one of the best games in this young NHL season on Monday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins. After a back-and-forth, fast-paced contest that produced the exchanging of goals and great goaltending, Sidney Crosby netted the game-tying goal with less than a second left to play. With momentum on the opposite side, Torey Krug blasted home the winning goal to give the B's the full two points and Eastern Conference supremacy....for the time being. 

The wins are coming in and the team is finding the rhythm that they lacked during the early part of the season. They wanted to finish out the month of November with as many points as possible against some good teams. 

Boston traveled to Detroit on Wednesday night to take on the Red Wings. The teams split the first two meetings of the season. Their fourth and final meeting will not take place until April, so the team on the wrong end of this one would have a bad taste in their mouths for quite some time. 

Although Adam McQuaid and Dennis Seidenberg made the trip for the Bruins, only McQuaid laced up the skates to play in this game. Shawn Thornton was a healthy scratch in this one as well.

The Bruins will have to look themselves in the mirror after this shellacking they endured against Detroit. They fell 6-1 in a game where they did not look like themselves. The Red Wings scored the first six goals of this game. If it was not for a late goal by Jarome Iginla, this would have looked outright embarrassing. This was not a great way to start a holiday weekend and the flight home must have been excruciating.   

While the rest of the city enjoyed their Thanksgiving dinners and early-morning shopping, the Bruins were preparing for their annual "Black Friday" matinee game. This year, they took on the New York Rangers. 

Seidenberg did return to the lineup for the Bruins in this one. He missed the last several games with an undisclosed injury. As a result, Kevan Miller was assigned back to Providence.

If there was one thing that the Bruins have yet to do effectively this year, it has been the lack of ability to stage comebacks. Friday afternoon featured a solid come-from-behind victory. They defeated the Rangers by a score of 3-2 in a very chippy and physical game.

The Bruins will play their final game of the month on Saturday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets. 

Gold Star: Patrice Bergeron...The entire offense runs through this man and sometimes players rely on their leaders to step up their game. 

Black Star: Carl Soderberg...He was playing so well. He followed up a great week of play by finishing with a minus-4 rating through two games.

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