Before this series started I went back and looked at the Bruins stats from their last two trips to the finals. It was a small trip down memory lane to my youth, an attempt to recapture childlike exuberance for the Bruins first attempt to win the Cup in 19 years. There was a lot of interesting stuff I found, like the fact that Kenny Linesman was the '88 teams leading point scorer, but the most interesting was the fact Jay Miller led the '88 team in playoff penalty minutes with 124. That's not a typo, one hundred and twenty four penalty minutes in one post season. That's more then this year's team penalty leader, Shawn Thorton, had all season. Now, I know things have changed dramatically over the last 23 years in the NHL, even two years later the team leader in the playoffs, Cam Neely, only had 51 minutes, but I think there is a lesson to be learned. Jay Miller wouldn't have let Alex Burrows score two goals and assist on another. Jay Miller would have made sure Burrows paid a price for his actions even if the NHL didn't think he had too. Hell, even Cam Neely would have punished Burrows to the point where he wouldn't feel as comfortable as he did last night in front of the net. I can't imagine Neely was happy sitting in the GM boxes watching the Canucks abuse and taunt the Bruins up one side of the ice and down the other.
I'm not going to sit here and say the Bruins should have won because Burrows shouldn't have been playing. Yes, he should have been suspended, but he wasn't. You can't whine and complain that something should have been done, you just have to deal with what was. What should have happened is the Bruins should have made Burrows pay their own price for such stupid and disgusting play instead of letting him single handily beat them. I can't help but think back two years to the Scott Walker/Aaron Ward incident. Walker should have been suspended for sucker punching Ward, but wasn't and ended up scoring the goal that knocked the Bruins out of the playoffs. Why does this Bruins team let people take advantage of them? I've said before on this blog that you can't rely on the league to do what's right, you have to take justice yourself, it's why fighting has to be allowed. The Bruins need to show some spine, let Vancouver know that they aren't going to let them bite and elbow and taunt by sticking fingers in their faces or they might as well just give up now.
This change in play has to begin with the coach. Julian needs to send a statement that the Bruins are done fooling around and put Thorton in the lineup. It doesn't matter who sits. Campbell and Paille played four minutes, Seguin eight, no one will notice if one of them isn't there. Which leads to the second things Julian needs to do, give the fourth line more ice time. All you hear is how the playoffs isn't the time to change what's been working and I remember reading how this year's team was different then last year because we actually had a fourth line that didn't hurt us when they were on the ice. So, here we are in the finals and that fourth line isn't playing. One thing have I pointed out over and over during this playoffs is that the Bruins don't have the legs to play 60 minutes with faster teams like Vancouver. You combat this problem by skating another line and shortening shifts and by wearing down the faster team with physical play. A line of Thorton, Campbell and whoever getting more ice time makes both of these things happen.
The Bruins aren't out of this series yet. They have played the Canucks close for two games and have fallen just short both times. An adjustment needs to be made to make sure the next two games it's the Canucks who fall short. Please, Julian, don't sit there on your laurels and watch this team lose, don't wait too long to pull the trigger and make the Vancouver lead insurmountable. Put Thorton on the ice, get the Garden crown in a frenzy and bring this series back to Canada tied 2-2.
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