As a Bruins fan I am undoubtedly biased when predicting this series, but I'm not a huge Hab hater. I do dislike the Canadiens because.. they're the Canadiens.. but I believe that they're a really great team. A lot of the reasoning behind that is because they have great goal tending. Carey Price had an amazing regular season - 72 games, 38 wins, 8 shut outs? That's not too shabby for a 23 year old who's protecting the net in one of the craziest hockey cities in the world. Aside from their great goal-tending, Montreal got lucky with rookie P.K. Subban this year. Only 21 years old and he played in 77 games, recording 38 points for the team. He also plays with a toughness that the Habs needed to add to their roster, especially when playing the Bruins. Montreal has also stepped up their special teams play; ranking 7th in power play and penalty killing percentages.
Then there's the Bruins... I feel as if they've had a perfect team to make it all the way every year but something always happens. Whether it's an injury to a key player or bad penalty, they lose it all in round 2 game 7. This year, however, they really do have a perfect team for the playoffs. Tim Thomas played his best regular season ever, better than any other goalie in the NHL. Tuukka Rask, the Bruins go-to guy in 2009-2010, hasn't had as much time in the spotlight as he did last year but the games he did play in showed us that he hasn't lost much of his edge. As far as offense goes the Bruins had four 20 goal scorers this season and last year they only had two! That's not even including injured Marc Savard or playmaker David Krejci. Milan Lucic lit up the lamp this season like never before, scoring 30 goals, leading the Bruins roster. (Nathan Horton, Patrice Bergeron, and rookie Brad Marchand were the other three B's to score over 20.) Even the Bruins tough guy Shawn Thornton recorded 10 goals on the season, a career high for the infamous instigator. The Bruins defense has always been pretty solid but with the addition of Tomas Kaberle they seem to be unstoppable. The Bruins acquired Kaberle at the trade deadline from Toronto and he instantly clicked with the team's style of play. With guys like Kaberle, Chara, and Seidenberg on the blue line we know it won't be easy for Montreal to get very many scoring chances.
If you were to compare the two teams based on offense, defense, goaltending, and special teams the Boston Bruins would win every category aside from special teams.. they are ineffective on the powerplay and although their penalty killing isn't terrible it is nothing like Montreal's. All in all this will be a pretty even series for the 3rd and 6th seed teams and will undoubtedly be an exciting one. I say, Bruins in 5!
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