For our new readers and members, the Top Six Minutes is a continuation of the discussion in the game thread. We try to keep it light and entertaining. Full recaps are up the morning after every game.
First Period:
- Tomas Plekanec looks like a different player since Galchenyuk and Desharnais went down. With six points (1 G, 5A) in his past three games, he’s looking good early in this one.
- Another player who’s looking really good lately is Artturi Lehkonen. He does not look like a first year NHL player at all. His forecheck is also very effective and leads to a turnover that almost ended in Andrew Shaw stuffing one home after taking Lehkonen’s pass and driving to the net.
- Good, Zdeno Chara is still getting booed.
- Alexei Emelin lays out David Pastrnak with a clean, vicious head.
- Torey Krug lays out Andrew Shaw with a shoulder to the head. I’m not sure what a headshot is though. Is it when you hit your opponent in the head when hitting them, or is it when you write a letter to the NHL before the game telling them your diabolical plan to check someone in the head at full speed at an exact time in the game and location on the ice? Not sure. No call was made, and that probably won’t lead to any supplemental discipline.
- Sit down Torey Krug. Just. Sit down. Brendan Gallagher crunches him in the Bruins’ zone and challenges him to a fight. Krug loses his balance before Gallagher can inflict any corporal punishment for possibly the most forgettable fight in NHL history.
- The hits are coming ‘a-plenty now. Max Pacioretty is getting in Zdeno Chara’s face. Bruins players are running around like they want to kill someone. Yep. This is a Habs vs. Bruins game./
Second Period:
- By this time in the game Saturday night, the Habs had scored six goals. What’s wrong with them tonight?
- Andrew Shaw is back in the game, taking him only twenty-five minutes to recover from the first period hit to the head. I once hit my head on a cupboard and was out of commission for three days.
- Tuuka Rask is looking really good tonight. … *rinses out mouth*… yeah I just said something good about a Bruin and my mouth immediately tasted bitter, eck.
- Come on hockey game, give me something good to say about the Habs to make this taste go away.
- Nope, nothing, not even the sweet nectar of a powerplay goal set up by Alex Radulov…
- The Bruins score with a minute left in the period… it’s like asking for a piece of cake and getting served boiled garbage instead./
Third Period:
- The bad news is it doesn’t look like the Habs are going to score ten goals tonight. The good news is they only need one to draw even.
- Alexei Emelin with his second big hip-check of the game. Maybe other NHL players will take note and slow down before trying to enter the Habs’ zone.
- The Habs powerplay isn’t doing anything tonight, but then again the Bruins are third in the league in penalty-killing. Zdeno Chara’s stick is pretty much a fifth man on the ice.
- I’m seeing a lot of stick-checks from both teams in this period, and no, I don’t mean the act of poking the puck away with the stick, I mean checking someone as you lead with your stick.
- Just as I was starting to feel grumpy… like the Habs were going to get shutout by the Bruins, Torrey Mitchell drives the puck to the net, takes a shot that is blocked, and while four Bruins including an out of position Tuuka Rask watch, Paul Byron sweeps the puck into the empty net to tie the game with 3:12 left.
- I think the Bruins also thought they had this one in the bag too, as they spend the next three minutes on their heels, giving the Habs a couple of good chances to end it before overtime./
Overtime:
- What a fast start to overtime. Both teams flying. The puck ends up behind everyone except for two Habs and Tuuka Rask who leaves the net to play it only to be flattened accidentally by Torrey Mitchell who was trying to beat him to the loose puck.
- The Bruins score, but it comes after Carey Price is swept into his own net by David Pastrnak. No goal.
- Fine, that one’s a goal. Ryan Spooner wins it for the Bruins. 2-1. /
Habs Highlight of the Night
Paul Byron ties the game late in the third:
