Habs Beat Bruins, but Bruins Beat Habs… Up

Bruins captain Zdeno Chara beats up the Habs’ Alexei Emelin for his dirty cross-check to the ribs on Tyler Seguin.

–

I apologize in advance for all of the swearing in this article.. I’m just very mad about Sunday night’s game, not because we lost, but because the Habs were up to their usual antics and the officiating was terrible.

–

If punches earned points like in boxing, the Bruins would’ve won Sunday night’s game 100-3! If being a pussy, cheap-shotting, or diving caused you to lose points, the Habs would’ve had a final score of about -50, as usual. To say their whole team are dicks almost doesn’t do it justice. Even their coach is a dick, and it sure looks like he teaches his players how to be more of a dick during practice. A perfect example (besides ANYTHING that P.K. Subban does) was when the Habs’ Alexei Emelin cross-checked Tyler Seguin so hard in the ribs that his stick broke and Seguin immediately fell to the ice in pain. Not only was that hit dirty as hell, but you can be all but sure it was premeditated. The reason is that the Habs were down by two goals and the Bruins were controlling the game. So how could the Habs get back into the game? Fuck with the Bruins, get under their skin, and take them out of their element.. and take out one of our top stars. Luckily, we’re the Bruins, and we don’t take shit nor do we let dirty/cheap hits go unpunished. Right after that hit, Bruins captain Zdeno Chara went right over to Emelin and beat the crap out of him, much to the delight of Bruins fans and his teammates. Because he blatantly went out of his way to do that, he earned a whopping 17 minutes of penalty time. I’m not going to even get into how bad the officiating was, it was some of the worst I’ve seen, but I do want to say that Chara should’ve gotten no more that the 10 minute instigator penalty after that cheap shot on Seguin (which earned NO CALL and definitely should’ve). Ah, the rivalry continues, stronger than ever. You can see a video of the cross-check and Chara’s retaliation below.

Unfortunately, while it was great to see justice, Chara is one of the most important players to the team’s success.. especially on defense. In the 17 minutes he was off the ice, the Habs scored two goals to take the lead. Both goals were such that if Chara was on the ice, you know at least one of them would’ve been prevented. Because of this, many argue that Chara should not have retaliated. However, there are also those, like me, who believe that was the right thing to do. It shows that the Bruins have the best team chemistry in the league, as has been shown before in similar situations. They always have each other’s backs and that gives them more confidence. At the same time it causes other teams to think twice about being cheap with us.

As for the officiating, while I won’t complain any further about this game, I do want to complain about the overall lack of diving penalties given throughout the league. The NHL really needs to take a note on what the NBA is doing as they have cracked down on flopping and it has since dramatically decreased. The Habs are notorious for embellishing hits and the refs really need to start calling it. So far this year, they have had 100 power plays in 22 games. That’s absolutely ridiculous! If that statistic doesn’t convince you of how much they dive, I don’t know what will (besides watching them). P.K. Subban is the quintessential example of a flopper, yet I don’t think he has ever received a penalty for it.. so then why even have the rule? Every time he goes down he starts holding himself like he’s hurt, then he looks up to see if a ref is looking, and if not, he pops right back up. He’s a big guy too, so it’s not like he’s easy to knock down or hurt.. and I hate him so much because he has skill, so he doesn’t need to be doing that.. plus he’s a total coward.. In Sunday night’s game he wouldn’t even fight Nathan Horton.. or even tiny little Brad Marchand. He’s a straight up bitch. Fix this NHL! As Bruins head coach Claude Julien said, it’s embarrassing to the sport and the league. And props to him for calling out the Habs and the league’s officiating, knowing he would take scrutiny for it.

While we lost the two points and the division lead, it’s alright.. we’ve played three fewer games than the Habs, and more importantly, we sent them a message. So now, in the next two regular season games against them, and when we likely meet them in the playoffs, they’ll be a bit more hesitant to dive and give cheap-shots. Well let’s be realistic, they’ll still dive, but they’ll at least hold back on the cheap-shots. The rest of the league has received the message as well. Many players from other teams were quoted as noticing what Chara did and giving props to him and the Bruins.

The Bruins are still in a great position, tied for second in the Eastern Conference and fourth in the league.. and we did win six straight games before this one. We’re also second in Point Percentage, only behind the Chicago Blackhawks, who are on an insane streak with no regulation loss yet this season. Further, we still lead the league in Penalty Kill Percentage at 91.1%. We’re also still tied for the lead in Winning Percentage when scoring first and when leading after the first period, both at 100%, and still leading in Faceoff Win Percentage at 58%. So this loss doesn’t really mean much. What matters is how we do during the grind in March, in which we have 17 games. Bruins fans should still feel confident as we have one of the best teams in the league, and certainly the best team chemistry.

–

Here’s a video of Alexei Emelin’s dirty cross-check to the ribs on Tyler Seguin and Zdeno Chara beating him up in retaliation: