Boston Bruins & Tampa Bay Lightning teams ahead of the Conference Finals - Coaches
Boston Bruins:
Boston Bruins’ coach, Claude Julien, has done pretty well for the team so far. The series against Montreal Canadiens saw Bruins losing both its opening games of the series but then making an impressive comeback.
Losing both opening games and that too on home ice is like digging a hole for yourself which is difficult to get out of.
However, Claude Julien was able to guide his team back and included the right players in the team to take Bruins to victory in the end.
He has profound knowledge of the game and his strategy of playing two players alongside each other has worked successfully for Bruins.
He is also among some of the calm men in the sport as he refrained to give any revengeful comments against Philadelphia Flyers who knocked them out of the playoffs last year.
He gave the impression that his team was more interested in winning games and moving into the Finals rather than looking to take revenge from any team.
His skills as a coach would be put under test once again if the star player in Bruins’ line-up, Patrice Bergeron, misses upcoming games due to his injury.
Bruins has been poor on power-plays in the playoffs so far. It wasn’t until Game 3 of the second round that it scored its first power-play goal in a 5-on-3 situation.
Bruins also wrote its name in history as the team to win a playoff series without scoring even a single goal in power-plays, against Montreal Canadiens in the first round.
After the goal in Game 3, Bruins scored the opening goal during power-play in Game 4 but things have been tough out there. Bruins has just capitalised on 2 out of 37 chances to score short-hand goals.
Tampa Bay Lightning:
Guy Boucher, Lightning’s coach, has increased his fan base immensely after he has guided a young Lightning team into the Conference Finals.
The positive approach of the coach in the fourth game to keep Roloson in goal worked as Tampa Bay won the series by 4-0 and had plenty of time to relax after that.
He has a wide list of players in defence and offence to chose from and has done pretty well thus far.
The unique thing about Boucher is that he doesn’t stick to only one combination but keeps on changing his strategy to bring out the best players on any night.
Unlike Boston Bruins, Lightning has been brilliant during power-plays as it has managed to score 12 times out of 45 chances coming its way. This is the best record amongst the last eight teams that played in the playoffs.
Tampa Bay Lightning will surely be looking to use all its resources and win the series as it looks to get hold of the Stanley Cup.
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