The Boston Bruins opened up their 2018-2019 season on the road down in Washington D.C. against the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Washington Capitals. After the banner raising ceremony and introductions, the puck was dropped.
What a horrible, atrocious, unbelievably bad start by the Bruins. After giving up 2 early goals, one being on the power play, they give up 3 more in the first 8 minutes of the 2nd period. 5-0 not even halfway through the game….not going to get the job done. Tuukka Rask got pulled after the 5th goal replaced by Jaroslav Halak making his Bruins debut. Halak was one of the very few bright spots for the Bruins. He wasn’t too bad in relief of Rask, allowing 2 goals on 18 shots faced.
The lone other bright spot that I saw, was Brad Marchand dropping the gloves late in the 3rd period. After Lars Eller made it a 7-0 game midway through the 3td period, the Bruins bench and especially Brad Marchand took exception to it. About time someone showed some life. A few minutes later in the game, Marchand was on the ice and hunted down Lars Eller, chirped him and the gloves were off. This was the first fight for Marchand since 2016 and oh boy what a fight it was. Marchy connected with the head and face quite a few times and after the refs stepped in when Eller hit the ice, his head had a stream of blood flowing.
I don’t want to see Marchy getting in a lot of fights, as much as he may cause fights, he’s not the guy that should be stepping up in that situation. He’s one of the B’s best if not the best player and they need him on the ice regardless of the score, he makes things happen. Having said that, if that’s how Marchand will fight from now on, I can’t wait to see what he does to the next guy to chirp him.
Now on to Buffalo to face a young and improving Sabres team with new captain Jack Eichel one of the games young stars. It is not going to be a game the B’s can overlook. You can’t overlook anyone in the NHL, but especially not this team. One of the worst teams in the league last year, they are definitely on the turnaround and could give a lot of teams in the Atlantic Conference some trouble. So Bruins, you better wake up and wake up fast, because 81 more games to go, and it HAS to be better than last night or Boston will riot.