Playoffs Daily | Game 5 & Game 6 | June 14th, 2011

Say you are a regular reader of my little scribblings, in that case I apologise for the infrequency that snuck into my postings. Work has been unbelievably hectic and personal time as well. In itself not a bad thing, but it has kept me from watching games as soon as I can and writing them up. So here with some delay my shorter than usual views on both games.


[Game 5: Bruins-Nucks] 0-1. Nucks lead series 3-2. I hate 1-0 games. I hate them just a bit less if the team I root for wins. But I hate them nonetheless. Upon seeing the result on my NHL applet I decided against watching this one. I am sure it had it's moments, but I just refuse to watch it. There you go. Nucks are a game ahead at this point and could have claimed the Cup in Game 6.


[Game 6: Nucks-Bruins] 2-5. Series tied, again. On home ice there is just no stopping the Bruins. They do not just play and somehow win, they dominate.

♦ That was an awesome first period. If you are a Bruins fan anyways. Everything went right for the Bruins here and they scored four goals in this one period. Marchand, Lucic, Ference scored in quick succession at which point the suffering Luongo was replaced by Schneider. Not that it helped much, as just a minute later Ryder (although at first it looked as if it was Kabby) scored the fourth one
♦ The second period was scoreless and apart from some hacking, slashing, checking, you could say not much went on it this period
♦ The third brought some more excitement. At least the Nucks got on the scoreboard. Sedin (Henrik) scored just seconds into the third. But Krejci made sure the message was clear and scored the fifth goal for the Bruins. Lapierre added a second goal for the Nucks, but for this game it was just not in the cards for the Nucks

Other stuff.
♦ Hits. Yes. Some took place. Some bad too. Of course I will mention the Boychuck hit on Raymond. By now we know that Raymond has a few fractured vertebrae and that he will be out for a few months. I wish him all the best and hope that he will have a quick recovery. As for the hit itself, I am a bit on the fence here. Both guys were fighting for the puck and Raymond was doing some weird contortionist act to get to the puck before Boychuck would. He sort of folded his own body around and underneath Boychuck's. And that is a big dude, so that close to the board it was an accident waiting to happen. I do not even want to imagine what that hit would have looked like at full speed, I am just glad the speed had already dissipated a bit. Still, I wonder if Boychuck maybe could have tried to avoid it, but I am sure he would have if he could 
♦ But the nastier hit was performed by Eidler. He thorougly boarded Pev. On an icing! Right. Eidler, read up on rules will you? Hmm and Bergeron had mean elbowing going on against Ehrhoff. Not very nice either

Some final thoughts:
♦ Does anyone else thinks that the Sedin twins are airing their frustration with lots of nasty mean little hits and pokes, of which most go unpunished?
♦  Who else misses Kesler? Well he is there, but he must be in some serious pain due to some sort of injury. He has been a ghost of his former self the past few games. Damn, I hate when such a great player is pretty much sidetracked due to some undisclosed injuries :(
♦ OK. So the Nucks barely win, but still, win, at home. The Bruins utterly dominate on their home ice. I am not so sure what to make of this. If the Bruins can bring even a bit of that extra energy they seem to have at home to Vancouver for Game 7, I can just see them win the Cup. Would be nice!