Tonight’s game in Boston was supposed to be a rematch of sorts against the two teams that met in the Eastern Conference Finals. What tonight showed was that Boston still had their game, but the Lightning clearly did not tonight. What a mess the first and third period was for the Lightning.
The Bolts were able to escape the first period with the game tied, but it didn’t look like the two teams were equally matched. The Bruins outshot them 15-9 and had tons of pressure during the their two power plays. Mathieu Garon was a big reason why the Lightning came out of the first unscathed.
The second period opened up for both teams and the Lightning came out looking better than they did in the first. Boston scored early in the period with a shot from Brad Marchand that goes off the post but Rich Peverley is able to put it past Garon. Martin St. Louis answers back with his 300th career goal to tie up the game on a breakaway from a pass from Ryan Malone. Boston reclaimed the lead with a goal from Daniel Paille just over a minute later. The Bolts ended the period just down 2-1 and at this point you were feeling all right about going to the intermission.
The third period is where things just collapsed. The Lightning started the period on a power play but Marchand was able to get on a shorthanded breakaway before luckily shooting high. Goaltender Tim Thomas then robbed Teddy Purcell from the left faceoff circle and maybe that was a sign of how the rest of the period was going to play out. Boston scored two goals and the Bolts had no answers. During the Rich Peverley goal that made it 4-1, four Lightning players were watching the puck go past Garon. They looked like they were being skated around in circles by the Bruins.
In all three periods the Bruins outshot the Lightning for a combined total of 42-26. But that’s not to take anything away from the 25 save performance by Thomas, because he was good when he needed to be.
Both teams were undisciplined and took far too many penalties and the Lightning went 0 for 5 on their power play opportunities. Brett Connolly had some great speed and a nice set up that the Lightning couldn’t capitalize on. Vincent Lecavalier had was a terrible 38% in the faceoff circle and Matt Gilroy was given a low TOI of 10:13.
