Monday night in Pittsburgh, Boston ran its points streak to 15 straight games by doing what it does best: annoying the tar out of everyone. Yes, the Big Bad Bruins are back.
The championship rings were long ago put into storage. The drunken nights sipping from Lord Stanley’s cup and the subsequent lengthy hangover are both now distant, if not blurry memories.
The one thing that lingers with these Boston Bruins is that they haven’t forgotten how they got there – by being arguably the league’s biggest pain in the rump.
“They’re good. Nothing flashy, just good,” Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik said after Monday’s 3-1 defeat at the hands of these new Big Bad Bruins. “They’re very patient. They wait for you to make mistakes and they capitalize on them.”
It can be argued that the Bruins don’t wait for other teams to make mistakes. They provoke them. They may be patient, but they’ll test everyone else’s. They get into your head before inevitably finding their way into your net.
Monday’s tilt with the prematurely ordained team to beat in the Eastern Conference was a microcosmic exhibit of that in-your-face, in-your-head antagonism that has served the defending champions so well.
Sidney Crosby barely lasted a period before blowing some steam on David Krejci, who coyly took advantage of each opportunity to insert his elbows and the butt end of his stick into any available inch of soft tissue on Crosby’s body. Evgeni Malkin’s knee may be better after last season’s injuries, but Daniel Paille decided to see how Malkin’s upper lip would do against the metal cage guarding his own. And Rich Peverley, one of the league’s most underrated agitators, had Orpik rattled before the first horn even blew.
The strategy for Boston was simple: pester the two all-world centers and gnaw away at a defensive corps already playing with a trio of AHLers because of injuries to Kris Letang, Zbynek Michalek, Deryk Engelland and Ben Lovejoy.
“There’s some injuries (on the blue line) and at this point, that’s probably their weakest link,” Boston coach Claude Julien said of Pittsburgh. “They know that and everybody else does, too.”
That’s what these Bruins are still good at this season: They find the tiniest scratch on their opponent and surgically twist a salt-dipped stick into it as deep as they can.
Brad Marchand may have looked dumb in slew-footing Penguins defenseman Matt Niskanen and drawing him into a fight. But with Niskanen, one of just three experienced D-men left for Pittsburgh, off the ice for five minutes, it left rookies Robert Bortuzzo, Simon Despres and Alexandre Picard overwhelmed with more minutes. With Niskanen still taking a towel in the penalty box, Benoit Pouliot scored to put Boston up 2-0 and essentially give goalie Tim Thomas more than enough of a lead to hold.
“I don’t think we approach playing a physical team any different than any other team,” Niskanen said after the game. “That’s their strength, but for us to be a good team, we have to play to our strength, and that’s playing a fast game.”
On Monday that wasn’t enough. It hasn’t been enough for anyone in regulation since before Halloween. And until someone learns to turn the other cheek while turning the rare backhand that Thomas can’t solve, the East road to the Stanley Cup Finals will not go through Pittsburgh, Washington, Philadelphia or New York, but through that crowd of aching derrieres in Beantown.
Fans in Montreal want Boston’s big defenseman in jail.
Buffalo wants one of their forward’s head on a platter.
The rest of the conference wants to find Boston’s weak link, if there is one to be exploited.
Photos by Getty Images
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