Tampa Bay Sends A Message To The Bruins In Game 1

Added on May 15, 2011 by J Merrill in

NHL

In a 90 second span at the 11 minute mark of the first period, the Tampa Bay Lightning scored three times, and Boston wasn’t able to recover and make up the deficit. Many thought both teams would be dealing with rust after being off for close to 9 days, but that couldn’t be said of Tampa. The 5-2 score isn’t very representative of the whole game as two of the goals were empty nets, b ut this could shape up to be a great series.

Tampa Bay forward Martin St. Louis said the team couldn’t have asked for a better start of the series, and he said the thing they were most concerned about was the initial pressure from the Bruins. He said “We couldn’t ask for a better result after (nine) days off, we wanted to come out and play our game and I think we did that. I thought they came out hard, especially the first three or four minutes. I thought they were skating really hard and making good plays in the neutral zone.” He continued by saying they had to maintain their composure, and thankfully they were able to do that, “We didn’t get spooked by it. Just kept going at it, kept skating, got our fore check going a little bit and created some chances. We were opportunistic on those and, obviously, it’s a lot easier to play with the lead in this League than trying to chase.”

Boston Bruins defenseman Tomas Kaberle said it felt like they gave them those three goals on a silver platter, and that they need to show what they are made of in the next round. He said “It’s tough, we pretty much gave them every single one of them. We know we are better in here and we have to show it in the second game. You know they are dangerous up front and you have to play in their zone and there is their goalie. We know it is not going to be an easy series.”

Boston goalie Tim Thomas said he was hoping to keep it to 2 goals, and regain his composires but the bad bounce goal was hard to deal with. He said “It’s a tough hole to get out of. Two would have been better. I was thinking, when we went down 2-0, I was thinking I was going to make this like Philly Game 2, I’m just going to hold them to two, and we’ll come back and win this game. But the third goal was a surprise, you know, bad-bounce goal, and that made it more difficult. But having said that, it was 3-1 in the second period, and if we could’ve won one period at a time, we’re still in that game.”

Tampa Bay coach Guy Boucher said he isn’t expecting this time of game in game 2, and he thinks Boston is about to get a whole lot more tough. He said “They’re a really good team. They came out hard. They’re going to come out harder the next game. I know Tim Thomas is going to make miracles. I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t come out with his best game of the playoffs. They got a lot of pride. They came back in the first series from two games. I mean, it’s only one game. We’ve done nothing yet.”