Bruins Shocking Penguins in Eastern Finals
The Boston Bruins are up 2-0 after their second straight road win at the Pittsburgh Penguins. Show of hands, who had the Bruins up 2-0? Nobody. Who had the Bruins up 2-0 this easily? Nobody. Not only have the Bruins gone on the road and won twice, an unlikely accomplishment, they have done it while outscoring the top seed in the Eastern Conference 9-1. What happened to the Pens?
After a 3-0 whitewash in Game One, people had to figure the Penguins would come back a play a lot better to start Game Two. But the Bruins scored four times in the first period on goals from Brad Marchand (28 seconds after the puck dropped), Nathan Horton at 14:37, David Krejci at 16:31, and after it looked as if the Pens would go into the locker room with a but of momentum after Brandon Sutter put them on the board with :34 to play, Marchand got another soul-crusher with :09 left in the first period.
After a scoreless second period, the Bruins struck quickly again with a goal 27 seconds into the third period by Patrice Bergeron to make it 5-1, ending any hope of a Pittsburgh comeback. Johnny Boychuk added insult to injury with about 1:30 left to make it a 6-1 final.
Pittsburgh is now faced with the unenviable task of going to Boston in an 0-2 hole. Not only are they down 0-2, but they have been completely dominated. There is no room for a slow improvement. They have to get this thing turned completely around. 37 of 291 teams have come back from 0-2 to win a series in NHL history. It’s safe to assume the majority of those did not go down 0-2 at home.
Bovada now has the Penguins at 11/2 to win the Stanley Cup while the Bruins are 9/5. Those odds are a little bit surprising. As bad as the Pens have been dominated, one would expect them to be even higher. The Los Angeles Kings are 12/1 and were not dominated nearly as much as Pittsburgh. And they will be taking on the Chicago Blackhawks at home for the next two games.
Sidney Crosby and Evangi Malkin have been shutout in the first two games. They will need to come up huge in Boston if the Penguins are to mount any kind of comeback in the series.
After the Bruins’ miracle rally to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in game Seven of the opening round, they have been playing with house money. With no pressure on them they have rolled since then beating the New York Rangers in five games and now going up 2-0 on Pittsburgh. It appears they are about to ride that momentum all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals.
