The Bruins goaltending woes, long the downfall of many a Boston team may finally be at an end. In his playoff debut, Andrew Raycroft was solid in the Bruin net sparking his team on to a 3-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens, in game number one of their first round match up.
Facing 31 shots, Raycroft turned them all aside frustrating Montreal on many occasions, while his team mates were tormenting Jose Theodore down at the Montreal end of the rink. The Canadiens abandoned Theodore in the first period, leaving him to face 23 out of his 39 shots in that first frame. The Bruins scored the opening goal of the game at the 5:12 mark and never looked back. Boston taking advantage of Montreal penalties scored twice on the power play on their way to the 3-0 win.
Sergei Gonchar, Michael Nylander and Mike Knuble were the Bruin marksmen in game one. Gonchar and Nylander the trading deadline additions, that have certainly rewarded the Bruins for their efforts in game number one.
Montreal could not launch any kind of sustained attack in this game, frequently turning over the puck, getting out hit and taking untimely penalties. For the entire night the Bruins just dominated the Canadiens in all facets of the game. As Saku Koivu put it after the game, “We have to do a lot of things better to win the next game.” Even more to the point was Sheldon Souray, stating “plain and simple, we didn’t show up.”
At least Coach Claude Julien won’t have to draw any pictures on the chalkboard, his team knows what they’ve done wrong, they just need to change the direction. They don’t have much time to regroup, Game number two is Friday night, if the effort is any better then, they’ll quickly be down 2 games to none.
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