Ah, the Florida trip. In previous years the Florida trip consisted of an automatic win and a really tough game against Tampa. Those days are seemingly gone after the Florida Panthers loaded up this offseason. In some weird twist of events, it is actually Roberto Luongo who may be Florida’s best player to start the season. Lulu is posting a .910 SV% and a 2.33 GAA and was absolutely obscene is his few outings to start the season. If Florida is going to amount to anything, it is because Luongo will be good enough to get them into the playoffs.
Before the season started, many people who participate in hockey betting believed that it would be Tampa, Florida and team of your choice as the top three in the Flortheast. Despite the season being so young, it hasn’t really shaken out that way. Instead of the somewhat dominating performance we thought they would give, Florida is floating around the wild card line.
Mind you: it is 8 games in so the sample size is incredibly small.
But fuck Florida, let’s talk about the Bruins.
Last week I wrote that Bruins fans shouldn’t panic because once Tuukka Rask was back – the ship would be righted. After the ruling came down that David Pastrnak would serve a two game suspension with a “headshot”…
…A steady goaltender can really turn things around. That’s what happened in Detroit, Saturday night. Rask was amazing in net for the Bruins and carried them to a 1-0 win. He will need to continue being the backstop for Boston because their secondary scoring is still shit (but yay Tim Schaller).
A lot of Bruins fans, self included, love to shit on the Bruins for their semi-antiquated four lines model. It’s fun when those things come back and blow up in our faces like a bukkake session. The Bruins’ fourth line has been their second best line this season. While David Krejci steals money from the Bruins’ organization and the third lines does their best impression of the Bermuda Triangle – Boston will have to rely on Patrice Bergeron and Friends™ to get the job done.
My one criticism of Saturday’s game: Jimmy Hayes on the power play. Hayes had 1:54 minutes on the power play Saturday night and if you wanted to make the argument that it was because Pastrnak was out there…well you’d be wrong. Looking back at previous games, Hayes has had power play time given to him. It doesn’t make any sense to me given the issues that Hayes has had all season. He’s been awful and to give him 5v4 time is just…
Yeah, I don’t understand it either.
