Boston Bruins: The B’s are the best team in the NHL

The Boston Bruins have been chasing the Tampa Bay Lightning all season. In the end, it looks like the B’s will be the ones on top.

Thursday nights Boston Bruins game was the most entertaining 60 minutes of the entire season. The boards were rocking, the skates were screeching, and the lamp was lit many times. You could sense that we are nearing the start of the playoffs.

The Bruins were looking to take over first place in the East on Thursday night and that was exactly what they did. They defeated the Lightning in a hard fought 4-2 victory.

Absolute domination

The Bruins first line is absolutely insane. Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak are vying to be the team’s leading scorer. They would all score on Thursday night. The line combined for 3 goals and 4 assists on the night.

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These guys seem to be on a completely different wavelength. They have a sort of chemistry that is making me believe telepathy is real. Also, something happened on Thursday night that was rarer than Halley’s Comet.

Bergeron was skating across the center of the ice and was laid out by Dan Girardi. Then an unlikely hero emerged. Pastrnak ended up dropping the gloves and going toe to toe with the defenseman. It may not have been the prettiest of fights, but “Pasta” did land a punch.

The sentiment was greatly appreciated by his teammates as he received a thunderous ovation of stick taps from teammates, as well as a roar from the TD Garden.

These three guys will be who the younger players look to for guidance in the playoffs. If these guys can get hot, the Boston Bruins road to the Stanley Cup will be a hell of a lot easier.

Two U’s. Two K’s. Two Punches?

What a night it was for Tuukka Rask. Let’s start with his goaltending. Rask stopped 26 shots, but that doesn’t show how great he was. He was making incredible saves. The best on Nikita Kucherov late in the 3rd period. It seemed like no mortal could spread out to make the save. It seemed the game would be tied, but Rask sprawled out and saved the Bruins lead.

Also, Rask made plenty of Bruins fans proud with his actions halfway through the 2nd period. Rask took exception to Cory Conacher crashing the net, and Rask let him have it.

Rask was fired up, and another star of that brawl was Brandon Carlo who straight up RKO’d a guy. Speaking of Carlo he had a great night, and by great, I mean not terrible. He was a +1 on the night and was really laying into guys.

Now back to Rask. The only bad moment was the 2nd goal that he allowed. It was a cheap goal that Rask should’ve stopped, but it didn’t matter as the Bruins went on to win. In the playoffs Rask can’t be allowing these soft goals.

A preview of the playoffs

As I stated before, this game had a playoff atmosphere to it. Guys were flying, and every play there was a big hit. The two teams combined for 67 hits and 44 penalty minutes. These teams seem to have cooked up some real animosity. There were multiple scrums, and these guys really seemed to not like each other.

This isn’t the last time these two teams faceoff, as they play in the finale of the season series on Tuesday night.

The Boston Bruins are in first place of the Eastern Conference. What a season it has been. The Bruins destiny is in their hands. It’s all up to them if they get home ice throughout the playoffs.

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The B’s hope to keep their winning ways alive when they play the Florida Panthers on Saturday afternoon at TD Garden.