Rod Brind’Amour thinks the Bruins are targeting Carolina’s goalies

Needless to say, all parties involved in Game 2 of the Bruins-Hurricanes series were still pretty fired up post-game.

The Canes were fired up due to another resounding win. The Bruins were fired up after seeing one of their guys KO’d and putting forward another pretty poor performance.

And then there’s Rod Brind’Amour, who may not have been fired up, but was nevertheless convinced that the Bruins are focusing their efforts on running his goalies.

Speaking after the game, Brind’Amour was asked (around the 0:58 mark) on Bally Sports if he thought the Bruins were “deliberately trying to target [his] goalies,” and this was his response:

“Well, what do you think? Can’t get anymore obvious.”

It seems to be a pretty wild take from Brind’Amour - whether he truly believes it or it’s a Berube-esque attempt at getting it on the radar prior to Game 3 is open to debate.

The David Pastrnak collision with Antti Raanta may have resulted in an injury (doesn’t appear to be a serious one), but it’d be a stretch to say that Pastrnak’s intention was to run the goalie.

First, the Bruins, already down in the series, were on the power play - odd time to run the goalie and take a penalty. Who needs goals in a 0-0 game when you can get a pound of flesh, right?

Second, if you’re going to run a goalie, why use your best goalscorer, a guy who happens to be the same size as Raanta (smaller if you include all of the goalie pads).

The Brad Marchand play, while stupid, predictably got blown out of proportion because it was Marchand.

It was a light shove by Marchand, followed by a slash by Pyotr Kochetkov, then one more each.

Dumb? Yes. A penalty? Absolutely. Targeting? A little dramatic.

Given the state of the series, the Bruins have about 150 other more pressing concerns than trying to take out Carolina’s goalies.

Scoring a goal before going down 3-0, for example - that’s a good place to start!

This is likely little more than gamesmanship from Brind’Amour, but was still a pretty surprising take from a guy whose team just put another big win in the books.

I guess we’ll see what happens in Game 3!