Sad Trombone: Bruins lose to Leafs, 3-2

Friends, I think we all learned a very important lesson here tonight, and it's that the Matt Bartkowski experiment has failed. Give me Torey Krug or give me DEATH. Terrible terrible terrible.

...actually, that isn't all that was terrible. So much terribleness! Plenty to go around.

The (really) ugly:

- Bartkowski. Send him back, yo. He was on the ice for two of TO's goals, and took a lame penalty, too. Not good.

- Beating a dead horse, here, but power play, you make me SO so sad. There was a real chance to change the tide of the game in the third, and they blew it.

- The lack of pouncing on rebounds has GOT to be fixed. There were chances there tonight - the Bruins had a billion shots on net, after all -- and some good flurries of sustained pressure. But the finishing, oy.

- ....but seriously, we need to do something about our D. Only 4 dudes who play NHL-level defense tonight, and it showed. Obviously, getting Boychuk back will help, but still.

- But really, there's so much blame to go around, especially when it comes to Toronto's second goal. Everyone there blew it. I'm looking at you, Lucic.

- Just ugh.

The not as ugly:

+ I might be in the minority, but I thought there were a couple of good things tonight - the fourth (third, these days) line being one of them. They've deservedly taken a lot of flack (because, as tomservo pointed out, they've been BAD), but these last two games they've stepped it up. Sure, they were on the ice for that third goal, but that was one Dobby probably wants back.

+ Yay, Dennis Seidenberg!

+ Yay, Andrew Ference! Well, your goal, anyway.

+ I also don't hate that the Bruins came back in the third. Their ability to do so is one of the things I like about this team. It didn't work out totally (see above comment about finishing), and of course it would be nice to not HAVE to come from behind, but I appreciate that they didn't lay down and die in this scenario.

+ I know number of shots on net isn't always an accurate or helpful gauge of how the game is going, but they shot a LOT of pucks on net. Reimer was good. The Bruins at least made him work for it. (I know that they weren't all good quality shots, trust me. But you still need to get pucks at the net to score. So it's something.)

+ The best thing I can say is the Bruins get to play these guys again in two days. Maybe this whole experience will piss the them right the hell off, and lead to a real curb-stomping at the Gahden. A girl can dream.