Welcome to Aerys Sports NHL 2012 Draft Center. This post will be updated throughout the night as teams draft the future of their franchises, as well as any trades that occur.
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Adam McQuaid (Photo: SlidingSideways/ Flickr
Tonight the Bruins took to the ice to prevent a series sweep against the Carolina Hurricanes. Though the teams are on completely opposite ends of the Eastern conference, you wouldn’t know that from the games that have been played. The Hurricanes are in a time to rebuild and what better way to do that than to say you swept the reigning Stanley Cup champs?
Like I said in my Practice Predictions, tonight was TUUKKAAA TIME at the TD Garden against the Canes Cam Ward. The only good thing that came from this game was that I could yell TUUUUK…yeah it was that bad.
Right off of the opening face off, it was made pretty clear that both teams were going to play strong. Early on I was very impressed with the Marchand-Bergeron-Seguin line as they had a few early shots on net and a few that I really thought had a good chance of getting past Ward. The other thing I was happy about was seeing the million dollar mullet back on the ice. Adam McQuaid was a game time decision literally switching up drills with Steven Kampfer until the start of the game but it was him who got the start with fresh from suspension Andrew Ference.
Eric Staal and the Canes got the first goal of the evening with 8.50 to go in the first but it was quickly overshadowed by Johnny Boychuk hitting the boards hard and leaving the ice. Anytime a player gets injured in previous seasons and then goes down hard, I swear my heart stops beating for a second. The Canes also got the first power play opportunity of the night as David Krejci was sent to the box for boarding, or love tapping as I call it. Fortunately the Bruins are ranked 7th in the NHL for penalty kills and they do just that.
The good that I got out of the first; the Bruins got 22 shots on goal, and won 13 out of 16 face offs. The bad that I got out of the first; we’re losing and the Hurricanes only had 8 shots. The Bruins are 13-10-2 when the opposing team scores first.
Second period starts up and fortunately Boychuk is back on the ice! The period for the most part gets off to a slow start and then Jaroslav Spacek takes a Boychuk shot and needs to be looked after but he does make his way to the Carolina bench on his own. That hit for some reason seemed to be the fire igniting under both teams skates because from then on the period was a back and forth of shots on net. Unfortunately Tuomo Ruutu took that fire and went with it scoring on an open net goal with 3.20 to go in the second. Rask is playing hard but unfortunately the B’s defense just isn’t stepping up.And with 34.2 seconds to go, Dennis Seidenberg gives the Canes their second power play chance and makes me sit with my fingers crossed waiting for this period to end.
Well…at least we killed that power play. But three minutes later,Brandon Sutter scores making it 3-0. When the Bruins are down by this much, the idea of writing any recap hurts and this one hurts a lot. 12.06 to go and Bruins get their first power play, and because they are 7th in the league when it comes to power play goals, I had a lot of expectations. Their losing furthers the need to have those expectations. Well that power play was a bust and to further the hurt Milan Lucic gets a roughing call before the pp even ends.
This is the 5th consecutive game that the Bruins have given up 3 or more goals and the 5th consecutive game to put this fan in a funk. The only good thing that is coming from any of this is that Carolina can’t score a power play goal. Thank you hockey gods for that one. Six minutes to go and the Canes take a slashing call and I cross my fingers because losing is one thing thing but being shut out to a team at the bottom of the conference, well that’s unacceptable. Frustration = Brad Marchand to the box for slashing 8 seconds into our power play.
In the end, fourth time was in fact not a charm and the Hurricanes sweep the Bruins and Cam Ward gets a well fought shut out. Moving forward the Bruins return to the ice Saturday in a matinee game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Hopefully by then they’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t. Claude will be having a nice chat with them tonight I’m sure.
(Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr)
More than one head was scratched when Jack Capuano decided to go with rookie goalie Kevin Poulin instead of either Evgeni Nabokov or Al Montoya tonight. After the final buzzer, however, all doubts were vanquished
Yes, the kid was more than all right.
Poulin ended with 21 saves on the night, and when the Canes managed to get on the board, All-Star John Tavares came through with a four-point effort to help preserve the win, 5-2. The two 21-year-olds were excellent in their respective roles, Poulin showing some awesome flexibility and JT displaying his skill and work ethic as usual.
The Isles jumped out to a 2-0 lead over two periods on two power-play goals- one by PA Parenteau, the other by Matt Moulson. The ‘Canes got some great looks in these two periods, but Poulin made sure to shut them down, making spectacular saves on Brandon Sutter and Eric Staal in particular. This certainly was not the nervous-looking goalie we saw hung out to dry against the Predators; no, KP was in complete control, flashing the pads and glove like quicksilver.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t stay that way forever. The Hurricanes broke through at 3:15 of the first period, as Sutter backhanded one past Poulin. Then, in a crazy sequence on a Carolina PP, Poulin made an initial save and got caught completely out of position, with Tim Brent eventually sweeping one into the open net as the Isles D tried to keep the puck out. The ‘Canes didn’t have much time to celebrate, however; 41 seconds after Brent’s goal, Tavares got behind the defense and capitalized on a huge mistake by goalie Cam Ward. Unfortunately for Ward, who was otherwise very good, that would be all it took.
Kyle Okposo and Tavares then added empty-netters late in the game to seal the deal for the Islanders, who earned a huge two points tonight after dropping their home-and-home against the Toronto Maple Leafs just before the All-Star break. Looking at the boxscore also doesn’t tell the entire story; though the top line did the bulk of the scoring, the bottom two lines, particularly the Josh Bailey line which included newly-called-up Rhett Rakhshani, established a great forecheck from start to finish. Rakhshani looked very comfortable in his first game of the season alongside Bailey and Matt Martin, and had some nice chances in front of Cam Ward.
Overall, this was a solid effort by the orange and blue, and two points they do need, as they are now eight points out of a playoff spot and don’t play again until Friday night against the Ottawa Senators. (Look at that: just when Johnny thought he’d left Ottawa, he’s back a week later. Ha.)
Let’s go, Isles!
