COLIN FERGUSON
ACTOR - EUREKA
First off, hats off to Boston for not being lured into more penalties. That took a discipline that I was surprised they had. And, for the purpose of discussion, Boston was and is the better team.
But this isn't a test of who's better. The President's Cup is a test of who's better. This is a test of which team can take the other team down. That's why the playoffs are interesting. And it's gonna be a better chess game
than I anticipated.
Boston is bigger, stronger, and totally healthy.
We're out a big points guy/best defenseman. And who knows what Lang
would have been at this point in the season but we have a lot of money
tied up there too.
So Gainey throws out Kovalev and Koivu with Laraque. And Tanguay
with Higgins and Metropolit, I assume to make sure we aren't going to
be physically outmatched on any line. And it almost works, it really
does. I think it would have worked better if Laraque had actually
made contact with someone at some point, but there you go. (Without
causing imbalance elsewhere, I'd prefer to see Latendresse or Lapierre
size up the first line - but that gets into a big mess.)
The test is going to be what Boston does to adjust. And what Gainey
does to counter.
I mean, for a portion of that game the Bruins were admittedly on their
heels. Both "new line" goals were fantastic, the defense is doing
well (considering) and we were more of a physical presence than I
expected.
And aside from Chara's PPG, Boston's goals weren't terribly pretty.
Having said that, they are clearly the powerhouse this year.
Long story short, I think we can take a game. And we've already done
the come-from-behind-to-win-three-in-a-row-thing so I've checked my
schedule and it's better for me if we take it this Saturday.
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