Bruins vs. Flames 2/21/20 RECAP: An absolutely wild first and 2nd leads to B’s winning a hockey game where offense was king

[deep inhale]

Where to begin.

First Period:

The game began with Jaroslav Halak giving up 2 goals in the first three minutes of the game. Both from the same player: Mikael Backlund. 2-0 Flames.

Which wasn’t ideal. Then not 30 seconds later from goal #2, Patrice Bergeron got Boston on the scoreboard, 2-1 Flames...

And then Johnny Gaudreau scored not 25 seconds later on a breakout, 3-1 Flames...

Then Bergeron scored again out in front of Talbot after getting the puck from behind the net, 3-2 Flames...

And finally, just to even it all out, The third line got a shot block, then a picture perfect pass up to Charlie Coyle, who put that sucker home. Talbot didn’t have a prayer. 3-3 All.

Everything I just showed you took less than 12 minutes to complete. There were 8 other minutes in this period that did not warrant a highlight.

Finally, it came to an end, and the 2nd awaited us with more entertaining nonsense!

2nd Period:

The Bruins would finish out the scoring in this game, believe it or not, in the first minute of the 2nd period, when Torey Krug fed a pass to Brandon Carlo by bouncing it off the opposite side boards, who then shot it at net and Brad Marchand’s tip got it past Cam Talbot. 4-3 Bruins!

The eyes on Krug and Marchand just to get that puck where it needed to go...just unbelievable.

The rest of the game at this point was mostly an afterthought, as the B’s clamped down defensively. One aspect that did become quite apparent was the continued adventures of the angriest little Quebecois this side of Montreal fans when they draft a european guy: Jeremy Lauzon. Who was getting involved in little scrums here and there before it finally boiled over into him fighting Matthew Tkachuk.

Not a great scrap for him, but you only learn how to fight by learning how to get punched in the face first, right?

Not much else of note happened, and to the 3rd period we went.

3rd Period:

As the game progressed, it became abundantly clear Boston wasn’t going to try and screw this up by going for goal, and only occasionally mounted offensive pressure, instead opting to slam the door directly in Calgary’s face.

With desperation setting in, Talbot was pulled, and the Bruins tried their very hardest to get Bergeron his hattie and his 30th goal of the season, but to no avail. Boston walks away from this one with a 4-3 Victory!

Game Notes:

• The first period felt like watching two people playing NHL 20 who only kind of knew how to play it. It was absolutely wonderful. I never want to go through that again.
• Both goalies’ SV% were completely unimportant by the time the first period ended. It was all about how each of them responded to that period, and Halak ended up having a better time once he’d calmed down and kept the Flames from causing anymore havoc.
• Further, for how poorly the Krug-Carlo pairing played in the first...five-ten minutes...they seemed to really bounce back and come out ready to lock things down for periods 2 and 3. Krug was blocking shots, Carlo was driving players away from Halak, their bounceback was very encouraging.
• Brad Marchand tried everything he could to get Bergie his hat trick in spite of the fact that he could’ve easily gotten that ENG. The only team in the league that needs to be told to be selfish; it’s unreal.
• Charlie Coyle’s tear continues; the real trick now is just feeding him those perfect passes to get him on breakouts.
• No power plays for Boston tonight, not that they needed it. The ice was so open at points during this game you’d think it was the Olympics. Almost no neutral zone play happened until the third period.

To think, they gotta go to Vancouver now. That game starts at 10:30pm EST tonight.

See you there!