The Fifth Liners

Winners Buffalo Sabres  In two short days, Dan Bylsma 's new reign in Buffalo already seems a lot brighter. Not only did they selected hot prospect Jack Eichel second overall, but they also pulled off an excellent trade with Colorado swapping Ryan O'Reilly and Jamie McGinn for Nikita Zadarov, Mikhail Grigorenko and J.T Compher. The day before they also acquired Robin Lehner and David Legwand in a trade with Ottawa for the 21st pick! Already their depth quality looks far more impressive than last season. With a top line included, Kane, Bogosian and Eichel, this might be a time to scale back on the Sabres related jokes on this blog. Edmonton Oilers Having the first overall pick, selecting Connor McDavid was a guaranteed high point. But new GM Peter Chiarelli also smartly acquired the services of goalie Cam Talbot for New York. While old team the Bruins (we'll get to them later) took a hit, Edmonton is now in the beginning stages of building a team that is actua...

"Everyone in Hockey is asking just what went wrong with Boston's season? What exactly was the factor that made their series go wrong, was it poor planning or were Montreal just too much for them?" Good Question, let's have a look. The Boston Bruins always looked good to advance through the playoffs, especially after being drawn against Detroit in the first round. Wracked with injury and inexperience, the depleted  Detroit Red Wings did well to get a playoff spot and certainly poured heart and soul into the series, but ultimately the Bruins were always going to win. There's two main reasons why things fell apart against the Montreal Canadiens , the first is that the series wasn't managed properly. On the ice the Bruins showed a complacency up front. During the regular season Boston scored 3.15 goals per game, in the playoffs this fell to 2.5. Like in the regular season, Jarome Iginla has been most prolific, having netted five times, while  David Krejci...

Spoiler. Chicago win. Anyway, how did it happen? First Period After Rene Rancourt's belting national anthem, the Bruins really took the initiative, letting the Blackhawks know that today would not be a formality. The first test for Tukka Rask came three minutes in when Nick Leddy fired a laser from center ice forcing Rask to knock the puck away. Less than a minute later Jonathan Toews linked up with Patrick Kane from behind Rask's net but Kane fired wide. The Blackhawks have been working on their link up play as Alex's man-crush Michal Handzus may have struggled in the faceoff spots but his passing was on target. The Handzus-Sharp pairing proving to be one of the best in the league. The Bruins' third line kept Chicago under pressure but for what seemed like an age, couldn't find the net. That was until the seventh minute when Tyler Seguin found the 'Hawks D-men sleeping and passed the puck in front of Corey Crawford to Chris Kelly who found t...

A triple overtime winner from Adam Shaw gave the Chicago Blackhawks a terrific fighting 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins in game one of the Stanley Cup Final at the United Center last night! But this was no straight forward affair and required Joel Quenneville 's men to go deep to produce a result from the bleakest of scenario's! Milan Lucic got the Bruins off to a brilliant start with a goal mid way through the first period off an assist from Nathan Horton and the ever impressive David Krecji and Lucic then went one better and bagged a second only 51 seconds into the second period (thats a lot of seconds there!) with one again Krecji providing the chance, before Brandan Saad put Hawks back in contention two minutes later with his first play off goal. Patrice Bergeron restored the Bruins to two goal lead with a powerplay goal 6 minutes into the third and it looked as if the Blackhawks' final might go the same way as the Penguins before them. But however there was to ...

It took a double overtime goal from Patrice Bergeron to secure the Boston Bruins a 2-1 over the Pittsburgh Penguins at TD Garden to put them firmly in the driving seat in the Eastern Conference Final! Although this saw less goals than the one sided second game, it proved just as entertaining affair. David Krecji 's impressive streak continued with an impressive opening goal, with assistant from Milan Lucic , Krecji calmly waiting behind the goal and then with great skill was able to skate round and have his shot deflect off Niskanen to score his ninth playoff goal for the Bruins this year! Tomas Vokoun held his place in net and made several more vital stops to prevent Boston from extending their advantage. But Pittsburgh battled hard and were deservedly level 12 minutes into the second period , Paul Martin set up Chris Kunitz who buried past Rask to give the fans a tie game! However although the brighter team, the Penguins were unable to find a way past the brilliant Tuukk...

A late goal flurry by the Boston Bruins saw them win an entertaining game 7 clash against the Toronto Maple Leafs in overtime at the TD Garden last night. This result now sets up an Eastern Conference semi final clash with the New York Rangers ! The game itself was a titanic back and forth affair, the Bruins started well with Matt Bartowski putting them ahead in the first period. Cody Franson levelled for the Leafs midway through the period and then succeeded in doubling his goal tally early in the second period to give Toronto a 2-1 advantage. The third period is when the action really kicked into life as the Bruins seemed to fall to pieces as early period goals from Phil Kessel and Nazim Kadri pushed the Leafs even further ahead and appeared to be giving Boston their marching orders. But incredibly this was not the end of the story as Nathan Horton gave them hope midway through and then Milan Lucic reduced the margin to one goal with two minutes to play! But then 1st star P...