Bruins Suck, Refs Blow in Tampa
Written by Greg Ezell   
Tuesday, 29 December 2009 09:38
thomaslayingdown

Wow, the title of this article is more suggestive than I thought it would be, but alas it is true. The Bruins went into Tampa Bay last night and had to battle two teams, the Lightning and the Zebras. I can't make excuses for the Bruins though because they played horrible, especially in the second period.

Tim Thomas, who made back-to-back starts, played pretty well stopping 37 of 39 shots. Speaking of Thomas, please read this alert before continuing.

ALERT: THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE A "TIM THOMAS HATER STATEMENT", SO PLEASE DON'T TAKE IT THAT WAY!

Now that I have that out of the way, I don't know if I agree with Julien's decision to start Thomas in back-to-back games. Last season, especially in the second round of the playoffs, Thomas looked fatigued and it could have been because of the increased work load he saw during the season. With the Olympics coming up, the Bruins should think about resting Thomas when it comes to back-to-back games.

If Thomas pulls a Dice-K in the World Baseball Classic and gets hurt, the Bruins will have to fall back on Tuukka Rask. That may be comforting for some people, but remember that Tuukka is a rookie.

Any who, Thomas wasn't the issue last night in Tampa, that medal goes to the offense, power play and officiating. Let's get to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good

Marco Sturm. Sturm has scored in two straight games and leads the Bruins in goals, which is not only a little surprising but fantastic. As MHCranberry of Eyeroll Sports pointed out on her Twitter "The one positive from the game: it really looks like Savard and Sturm have got something going on that line." I couldn't agree more and having Sturm play like this will absolutely help Boston going forward.

Tim Thomas. Like I said, Thomas played well last night for Boston. Unlike the night before against the Panthers, Thomas controlled his rebounds and was in solid position all night. It was good to see Thomas play well in back-to-back games.

The Bad

The Offense. Yeah, it was bad last night. It was really bad last night! The Bruins mustered 32 shots against the Lightning throughout the game, but were only able to put 6 shots on goal in the second period, 6! There's a problem when you can only squeak 6 shots in against one of the worst teams in the East. The problem just wasn't shot production however, the Bruins had trouble entering the Tampa zone, setting up their offense, passing and basic execution.

The Ugly

Power Play. Need I say more? The words "Bruins" and "Power Play" usually spells disaster. What can I say that hasn't been said? It stunk.

Officiating. Holy smokes, the officiating was horrendous last night. A few calls, especially the Blake Wheeler "roughing" penalty comes to mind. I haven't seen officiating this bad since the Bruins played Philadelphia about a week or so ago.

Win of the Night

Watching Marco Sturm score and then flash a very angry Sturmface. It's good to see that Marco has his scoring touch back for these last couple of games.

Stat of the Night

After last night's game the Bruins are tied for first in penalty kill with the Chicago Blackhawks with an 87.5% success rate when down the man advantage.

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