Bruins vs. Sens Recap: Who Cares about Pretty, BRUINS WIN!

ALL HAIL DER HAMMER. Ahem.

So that was sure a game. Good hockey by the Bruins, it was not. But in this compressed back half of a shortened season, I ain't complaining (too much).

The Story:

The first period was, as ol' Jack Edwards pointed out on ye olde twitters, a tightly played one. The Bruins were out-hit (take that as you will. Personally, I mostly feel like one reason you don't throw hits is because you have the puck, and that ain't necessarily a bad thing), and absolutely dominated on the dot, but the intensity was missing from a lot of the Bruins' key players. A flurry at the end of the period saw Dr. Khu come up big a number of times. Hey, he's a pretty good goalie, huh!

The second period looked to be more of the same before Daugavins' goal for Ottawa. The Bruins, in the meantime, spent the period engaging in a plethora of bad turnovers (looking at you, Lucic), and a powerplay with zero, count them, ZERO shots on goal. Fortunately, D. Paille decided to take his shot, rather than pass, and the Bruins were able to pull even with less than a minute and a half to go.

Another useless powerplay in the third, some shoving by Thornton and Latendresse, Krejci looking like a hurting piece, and then finally, with just over a minute left to play and me becoming convinced we were headed for *another* OT/SO game with Ottawa, Dennis Seidenberg wins the game and my undying love by burying a pass from Zee off a clean faceoff win by Bergeron. Thank fuck.

The Ugly:

-What's the opposite of inspired hockey? This was it.

- Krejci wasn't looking 100% recovered from his injury. I mean, kudos to him for toughing it out (he played almost 20 mins!), but oof. :( :( :(

-Aside from that dominant game against Washington, the Lucic-Krejci-Horton line is still not pulling its weight. They had a combined 8 shots, but they're not bringing the good stuff.

- Hamilton's defensive growing pains continue. To be expected, but a bit scary to watch, at times.

-Too many blown chances -- 3 on 1s, odd-man rushes, you name it. At some point, those chances have to turn in to scoring, especially if the Bruins are going to keep playing tight, one goal games.

The Good:

+ PIE. He scored his 6th goal of the season, which (along with his 5 assists) bring his point total to 11. All of last season he had 15 points -- he's having himself a year, in other words. His shooting percentage is definitely higher than his average -- 5 on 5 he's at 11.8, and last year, he was at 6.8 -- but it's good to see him capitalizing on his chances, for the time being, at least.

+ Seguin worked hard for the money tonight. He had 4 shots on goal, to add to his team-leading 92 going into the game this evening.

+ Faceoffs and the pk, Boston's best features these days, continued to shine. While Bergeron did the heavy lifting on the dot, Ryan Spooner didn't look too shabby, winning 4 of 7.

+ Merlot did yeoman's work this evening, playing more minutes than the third line (only 5:48 for Jordan Caron, yo) and racking up 10 shots on goal.

+ Thank you, Dennis Seidenberg.

+ It bears repeating: Khudobin ruled in this game. Kept the Bruins in it, for sure. His save % is now .925, which I feel pretty effing good about.

Next up: a home and home with Toronto, and hopefully a bit more oomph from the Bruins on Saturday night.