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Why The Bruins Lost



The Bruins lost track of what they needed to do to win. Lucic shooting his mouth off is a sign of that loss of focus. The water spraying and the baiting were unnecessary distractions. They failed to act where it mattered; on the ice. Milan Lucic was supposed to be a big intimidator; the Habs didn't look intimidated AT ALL. Instead of shooting his mouth off, Lucic should have played better. At times in fact it seemed like the opposite was happening; the Habs were intimidating the Bruins. The Bruins weren't nearly physical enough and they allowed the Habs to play their game, instead of forcing the Habs to play the Bruins game. For whatever reason, Zdeno Chara also allowed himself to be pushed around by far smaller, weaker opponents, and made far too many uncharacteristic mistakes. Maybe it was fatigue. Not sure. He definately wasn't on top of his game.

More speed might have helped, and certainly the Bruins lost some of that when they traded away Seguin and Peverly; but I don't think it was as big a factor as some made it out to be. The Bruins were still fast enough and had they done something to slow down the Habs, like being more physical, then the Montreal players would not have been able to take advantage of it nearly as much as they did.

The loss of Seidenburg and McQuaid definately was a factor. Although the young replacement defensemen did an admirable job filling in, and I think they have promising futures, they are after all rookies, and there were too many rookie mistakes made by the likes of Bartkowski and Miller in the second round. On the plus side, both Krug and Hamilton showed big improvements in the dependability department, although it would have been nice if both could have provided a bit more offense as well.

I have to say that despite their popularity amongst some fans, I felt that both Soderburg and Eriksson were bloody awful. I usually detest CBC commentator Glen Healy, yet I found myself agreeing with him for once, when he said; "I'm sorry, Soderburg and Eriksson on the power play? That's a waste of a minute." Yet Claude kept going back to them, when they couldn't get the job done on the PP.

Iginla looked good, hope he comes back next year. Krecji and Bergeron didn't do nearly enough; they were lacking in the sort of leadership that both have shown in the past. Not sure why. Maybe the fatigue factor again. Maybe repeated deep playoff runs have caught up to the Bruins. Maybe the 4th line slowing down was a factor; could be time to re-tool that line.

I think the Bruins still have a great core of players. They may need to tweak things here and there, add some speed, maybe re-think the Swedish 3rd line experiment, maybe add some youthful exuberence on the offence, but I don't think wholesale changes are needed. They also need to remember their identity. They are not a run-and-gun highly offensively skilled type of team, although they seemed to want to match the Habs at that sort of game. They do have some of those sorts of skills, but not in abundance. The Bruins are, and have always been, a lunch-bucket sort of team; with a style of play based on hard work and a physical, hard-nosed approach to the game. They forgot that in every game except game 5 of this series, and it cost them dearly.

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