Thanks For Playing: Boston Bruins

Last night the Philadelphia Flyers rallied from being down three games to none to defeat the Boston Bruins 4-3. The loss brought the 2010 season to an end for the Bruins.

Today we take a look back at how the Bruins got here, what went wrong, & where they go from here.

How they got here:

The Boston Bruins finished 39-30-13. That was good enough for 91 points and a 6th place finish in the Eastern Conference. Marco Sturm led the Bruins in goals with 22 and Patrice Begeron led them in points with 52.

Tuukka Rask emerged during the middle of the season to take away the starting goaltender position away from Tim Thomas. Rask finished with a save percentage of .931 and a goals against average of 1.97.

In the 1st round the Bruins were able to upset the Buffalo Sabres four games to two before advancing to the 2nd round.

What went wrong:

There were two things that happened in this series that swung the momentum in favor of the Flyers.

The 1st happened in game four of the series. Flyers forward Simon Gagne returned to the lineup after missing the 1st three games with a foot injury. Originally, he was thought to not be available at all in this series.

With Philly down three games to none he suited up hoping to give his teammates an emotional boost. He did more than that, scoring the game winning goal in overtime to give Philadelphia a 5-4 win and their 1st win in the series.

Gagne's return to the lineup along with an injury to Bruins forward David Krecji in Game three gave the Flyers a huge advantage at forward that no team really had after the 1st three games.

Gagne struck again in Game five, scoring two goals to lead Philly to a 4-0 win. In game 6 Philly jumped out to a 2-0 lead before Boston finally found the back of the net with a minute to play only to fall short 2-1.

That brought us to Game seven in Boston. The Bruins got on the board first when Michael Ryder scored on a wrist shot 5 and a half minutes into the 1st period to give Boston a 1-0 lead. Milan Lucic scored the next two goals to give Boston a 3-0 lead late into the 1st period.

But Game seven would end up mirroring the series. The Flyers got on the board when forward James Van Riemsdyk scored a soft goal to make it 3-1 after one period. Once he scored I felt Boston had to get the next goal or they were in trouble. That didn't happen. Goals by Scott Hartnell & Daniel Briere in the 2nd period tied the game 3-3.

In the 3rd period Boston was called for a too many men on the ice penalty that brought back memories of 1979.

The Flyers only had one shot on the power play but Simon Gagne made it count as he found the back of the net to give Philadelphia a 4-3 lead they would not relinquish as they came back from three down to not only win the game but the series as well.

Where do they go from here:

When you are up 3-0 whether it is a game or a series you are expected to win. There is a reason why teams rarely come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series and yet the Flyers made it look easy in this comeback.

If I am Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli there are two things I do this off-season.

1. I fire Claude Julien as head coach. Whenever I watched the Bruins in this series he had a look on his face like he didn't even know a hockey game was going on. After this collapse I can't see anyway the Bruins can move forward as long as he is the coach.

2. Strip Zdeno Chara of the "C". I like Chara, I think he is a great defenseman and an asset to have on your team. I don't think he is much of a captain. He never was a guy that took charge when he played in Ottawa and so far I don't feel he has taken charge in Boston.

Chara is now 0-5 lifetime in game sevens. I can't see the Bruins getting to the conference finals as long as he is their leader.

Of course I am not the general manager of the Bruins so the chances of these two things happening are 50/50 at best.

What I do know is that there is a lot of soul searching going on in Massachusetts today. There will be some changes on this roster this off-season. There had better be. Losing a series after leading three games to none is something that will be very difficult for the Bruins to overcome.