Boston Bruins vs. Tampa Bay Lightning: Breakdown of Game 7 - 2011 NHL Eastern Conference Finals
Boston Bruins,especially the Vezina Trophy finalist, Tim Thomas, deserve respect for the way they shutdown the Tampa Bay Lightning, 1-0, on Friday in a close game-seven of the National Hockey League (NHL) Playoffs Eastern Conference Finals.
Tampa Bay was eliminated after a long surprising stretch in which they earned huge victories over some of the greatest teams in the league.
Entering the playoffs as the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, Tampa Bay was not expecting to go as deep as they did.
After near elimination against Pittsburgh Penguins, Lightning bounced back in the conference semifinals to clean sweep the top seed, Washington Capitals, in four straight games.
Next up was Boston Bruins, who by their performance seemed to be no match for the rowdy Tampa Bay line-up.
Lightning was on the brink of elimination after game-five but recovered in game-six to force a game-seven decider. Boston finally woke up and eliminated them to move on to the Stanley Cup Finals after 20 years of trying.
Breaking down the game, period by period, we can try and understand what happened throughout the match to get a better idea of what we should expect when they face Vancouver Canucks in the final round.
Period 1 and 2
Both teams started off strong, but Boston outshot Lightning, 15-9, in the initial 20 minutes. Surprisingly, there were no penalties throughout the whole 60 minutes of regulation game-play, which makes this one of the historic matches, especially Bruins being
in a tense game-seven.
It might have been since both teams were being hesitant to give the other a chance at any power play time which would give a major advantage with the added man.
Tampa Bay’s Dominic Moore, Dana Tyrell and Marc-Andre Bergeron fired three consecutive shots at the net in a 24-second time span in the opening minutes of the first period but due to Tim Thomas’s divine goaltending abilities, they remained unsuccessful.
This routine continued for both teams, but both goalies, Dwayne Roloson and Tim Thomas, were performing at their peak levels which locked down the opposing offence and ended the first two periods at 0-0.
End of first period 0-0
End of second period 0-0
Period 3
It was an extremely tense situation at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, as the crowd was on the edge of their seats, waiting for the deciding goal of the final match.
David Krejci winning the face off against Steven Stamkos after an offside stoppage was issued with less than eight minutes remaining. Krejci, after taking control of the puck in the neutral zone, fired off to Horton who was open near the left post by Roloson
and tipped his pass into the net for the game’s first and winning goal.
"It is hard to explain how good this feeling is", Horton said after making the game winning goal.
Tim Thomas achieved his second shutout of the season as he made 24 perfect saves while Horton’s goal washed away Roloson’s hard work as he blocked 37 of 38 attempts.
End of third period, 1-0. Boston wins.
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