? The Bruins are standing on the brink of another Game 7 after battling through three rounds of playoffs, and the stakes are certainly high enough.
While it doesn?t appear the future employment of coach Claude Julien hangs in the balance, the legacies of elite Bruins players like Zdeno Chara and Tim Thomas certainly do.
Will they be very good players who spent their time admirably in Bruins uniforms with All-Star berths and individual hockey hardware, or will they go down as members of the best Bruins team in more than 20 years?
?If somebody was going to tell us that we were going to be -- before the playoffs or before the season -- one win away from the Finals, for sure we would be all excited,? said Chara. ?So we have to take it that way. We have to embrace it, be excited, and have fun at the same time.?
Nobody from the 1990 edition of the Boston Bruins thought it would be the last time most of them would make it to the Stanley Cup Finals. They had young players who expected to be back every year, like current Bruins president Cam Neely. Their inability to get back to the Finals simply reinforces the importance that the current crop of B?s seize the moment in front of them.
There are no major injuries. There are no Game 7 ghosts or Philadelphia Flyers poltergeists to haunt the Bruins. There is simply another solid hockey team in the Tampa Bay Lightning that finished with the same regular-season record as the Bruins, and has put together the exact same playoff record as well.
The Bruins and Lightning come to the task from largely different styles of play, but they?ve both proven good enough to push the other team to the brink. Now it?s up to one game to show which team has the poise, guts, fortitude and endurance to stand up victorious when the two squads finally shake hands.
The prediction here: Bruins win by a 3-1 score in regulation.
But it won?t be easy. Julien and the Bruins must be willing to change if they?re hoping to vanquish the Lighting and banish ?evil hockey genius? coach Guy Boucher to a James Bond movie set for the rest of the summer as the straight-out-of-central-casting villain. Here are five adjustments the Bruins must make to win Game 7:
RECCHI OFF THE POWER PLAY
It?s time to take Mark Recchi off the power play units. The 43-year-old is tied with Milan Lucic for the third-most power play ice time (45:54) among B?s forwards in 17 playoff games, and the future Hall of Famer has exactly zero points.
Recchi hasn?t been able to battle his way down low to tip and redirect pucks as he?s done in the past during the postseason, and his lack of skating speed is an issue when it comes to retrieving pucks and setting up in the offensive zone on the hard entries.
He's been a brilliant leader and warrior for the Bruins over the last three years, but they simply need a little more speed and offensive pop.
Place Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton on separate power-play units down low, and utilize their big bodies for tipped pucks and rebounds. Lucic and Horton have only one power-play goal apiece in extended time during the playoffs, and both Rich Peverley and Patrice Bergeron have no PP points in over 30 minutes of power play time.
Tomas Kaberle has born the brunt of the power-play failure through the playoffs, but the forward combination is a big reason things aren?t working.
PLAY THE KID
Conversely, giving Tyler Seguin 8:18 of power-play time in the playoffs and then pulling the plug on the 19-year-old prospect is extremely short-sighted. Seguin was kept off the power play in Game 6 despite five chances for the Bruins that finished with only five shots on net. The power play is the reason the Bruins lost that game, and Tampa Bay pushed things to a Game 7.
Seguin should be paired with Kaberle on a power-play squad ? a tandem that showed a great deal of puck-moving promise in the brief time they were on the PP together earlier in the series ? and instructed to shoot from anywhere and everywhere once he gets the puck.
The rookie shouldn?t be in the lineup if the coaching staff doesn?t plan on giving him power-play time ? it just doesn?t make sense.
SICK CHARA ON 'EM
With the final change at home on the TD Garden ice, there will be little chance that the defense pairing of Johnny Boychuk and Andrew Ference will be out against the top Lightning line of Steve Stamkos, Martin St. Louis and Steve Downie.
That trio did a ton of damage in Game 6 as Guy Boucher, time and time again, managed to get his best forwards against the middle D-pairing and attacked Boychuk with speed and fury. The attack caused Boychuk to speed up his decision-making defensively, and ultimately left No. 55 on the ice for all five of Tampa Bay?s goals.
That won?t repeat itself Friday night in Game 7 with Claude Julien holding the final change ? and should instead result in a steady diet of Chara and Seidenberg for Tampa?s top attackers.
PROMOTE PEVERLEY
There is certainly still a big place for Mark Recchi in Boston?s lineup given his leadership, his playoff experience and the very real possibility he could cowboy up to score on a tip or redirect in front of the net. But Recchi looks as if the full regular season and three rounds of the playoffs have taken something out of his 43-year-old legs, and left him without the burst needed to compliment linemates Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron.
Recchi is averaging slightly more than a shot per game in the playoffs, and hasn?t been a consistent offensive force on a line that needs to produce points.
Claude Julien pushed Rich Peverley up to the wing alongside Marchand and Bergeron in the final minutes of Game 6 to add more speed, playmaking and offensive pop to the B?s duo, and it appeared to work. The B?s would do well to alternate Peverley and Recchi on the wing alongside Bergeron and Marchand ? a strategy that could give the line a boost while also giving Recchi a breather or two during the game to have him fresher down the stretch.
AIM AND FIRE . . . AND FIRE . . .
The Bruins need many, many, many more shots on net.
One of the biggest problems on the power-play units is way too many players are willing to pass the puck while almost nobody is willing to shoot the thing. That was an issue in five-on-five play during Game 6, as well. Twelve shots on net in the final two periods of the game, and 20 shots total is a piddling amount in a playoff game. All parties involved need to be better.
Patrice Bergeron, in particular, was little more than average in the pivotal playoff game while losing faceoffs and failing to gain any offensive traction. Bergeron needs to be much better, and the Bruins need to be better collectively if they?re hoping to advance against a Lightning team that won?t be backing down.
--jhaggerty/comcastsportsnet.com.
While it doesn?t appear the future employment of coach Claude Julien hangs in the balance, the legacies of elite Bruins players like Zdeno Chara and Tim Thomas certainly do.
Will they be very good players who spent their time admirably in Bruins uniforms with All-Star berths and individual hockey hardware, or will they go down as members of the best Bruins team in more than 20 years?
?If somebody was going to tell us that we were going to be -- before the playoffs or before the season -- one win away from the Finals, for sure we would be all excited,? said Chara. ?So we have to take it that way. We have to embrace it, be excited, and have fun at the same time.?
Nobody from the 1990 edition of the Boston Bruins thought it would be the last time most of them would make it to the Stanley Cup Finals. They had young players who expected to be back every year, like current Bruins president Cam Neely. Their inability to get back to the Finals simply reinforces the importance that the current crop of B?s seize the moment in front of them.
There are no major injuries. There are no Game 7 ghosts or Philadelphia Flyers poltergeists to haunt the Bruins. There is simply another solid hockey team in the Tampa Bay Lightning that finished with the same regular-season record as the Bruins, and has put together the exact same playoff record as well.
The Bruins and Lightning come to the task from largely different styles of play, but they?ve both proven good enough to push the other team to the brink. Now it?s up to one game to show which team has the poise, guts, fortitude and endurance to stand up victorious when the two squads finally shake hands.
The prediction here: Bruins win by a 3-1 score in regulation.
But it won?t be easy. Julien and the Bruins must be willing to change if they?re hoping to vanquish the Lighting and banish ?evil hockey genius? coach Guy Boucher to a James Bond movie set for the rest of the summer as the straight-out-of-central-casting villain. Here are five adjustments the Bruins must make to win Game 7:
RECCHI OFF THE POWER PLAY
It?s time to take Mark Recchi off the power play units. The 43-year-old is tied with Milan Lucic for the third-most power play ice time (45:54) among B?s forwards in 17 playoff games, and the future Hall of Famer has exactly zero points.
Recchi hasn?t been able to battle his way down low to tip and redirect pucks as he?s done in the past during the postseason, and his lack of skating speed is an issue when it comes to retrieving pucks and setting up in the offensive zone on the hard entries.
He's been a brilliant leader and warrior for the Bruins over the last three years, but they simply need a little more speed and offensive pop.
Place Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton on separate power-play units down low, and utilize their big bodies for tipped pucks and rebounds. Lucic and Horton have only one power-play goal apiece in extended time during the playoffs, and both Rich Peverley and Patrice Bergeron have no PP points in over 30 minutes of power play time.
Tomas Kaberle has born the brunt of the power-play failure through the playoffs, but the forward combination is a big reason things aren?t working.
PLAY THE KID
Conversely, giving Tyler Seguin 8:18 of power-play time in the playoffs and then pulling the plug on the 19-year-old prospect is extremely short-sighted. Seguin was kept off the power play in Game 6 despite five chances for the Bruins that finished with only five shots on net. The power play is the reason the Bruins lost that game, and Tampa Bay pushed things to a Game 7.
Seguin should be paired with Kaberle on a power-play squad ? a tandem that showed a great deal of puck-moving promise in the brief time they were on the PP together earlier in the series ? and instructed to shoot from anywhere and everywhere once he gets the puck.
The rookie shouldn?t be in the lineup if the coaching staff doesn?t plan on giving him power-play time ? it just doesn?t make sense.
SICK CHARA ON 'EM
With the final change at home on the TD Garden ice, there will be little chance that the defense pairing of Johnny Boychuk and Andrew Ference will be out against the top Lightning line of Steve Stamkos, Martin St. Louis and Steve Downie.
That trio did a ton of damage in Game 6 as Guy Boucher, time and time again, managed to get his best forwards against the middle D-pairing and attacked Boychuk with speed and fury. The attack caused Boychuk to speed up his decision-making defensively, and ultimately left No. 55 on the ice for all five of Tampa Bay?s goals.
That won?t repeat itself Friday night in Game 7 with Claude Julien holding the final change ? and should instead result in a steady diet of Chara and Seidenberg for Tampa?s top attackers.
PROMOTE PEVERLEY
There is certainly still a big place for Mark Recchi in Boston?s lineup given his leadership, his playoff experience and the very real possibility he could cowboy up to score on a tip or redirect in front of the net. But Recchi looks as if the full regular season and three rounds of the playoffs have taken something out of his 43-year-old legs, and left him without the burst needed to compliment linemates Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron.
Recchi is averaging slightly more than a shot per game in the playoffs, and hasn?t been a consistent offensive force on a line that needs to produce points.
Claude Julien pushed Rich Peverley up to the wing alongside Marchand and Bergeron in the final minutes of Game 6 to add more speed, playmaking and offensive pop to the B?s duo, and it appeared to work. The B?s would do well to alternate Peverley and Recchi on the wing alongside Bergeron and Marchand ? a strategy that could give the line a boost while also giving Recchi a breather or two during the game to have him fresher down the stretch.
AIM AND FIRE . . . AND FIRE . . .
The Bruins need many, many, many more shots on net.
One of the biggest problems on the power-play units is way too many players are willing to pass the puck while almost nobody is willing to shoot the thing. That was an issue in five-on-five play during Game 6, as well. Twelve shots on net in the final two periods of the game, and 20 shots total is a piddling amount in a playoff game. All parties involved need to be better.
Patrice Bergeron, in particular, was little more than average in the pivotal playoff game while losing faceoffs and failing to gain any offensive traction. Bergeron needs to be much better, and the Bruins need to be better collectively if they?re hoping to advance against a Lightning team that won?t be backing down.
--jhaggerty/comcastsportsnet.com.
