Boston Bruins-Philadelphia Flyers Make History: B's on the Short End

Game Seven proved to be barn burner and it did.  Unfortunately, for the Boston Bruins, they made history in a manner they did not want to.  Being the fourth team in Professional Sport History to lose a series after being up 3-0 in a seven game series.

They had a great start being up 3-0 in the opening period only to have the Flyers score four unanswered goals to take the lead and the win on what was a hauntingly Too-Many-Men Penalty with 8:50 left of the game.  Simone Gagne scored the go ahead and series winner with just 18 seconds left of the penalty and that wrote the series in the record books.

The Bruins' locker room was very sober and the common theme when asked why they think they lost was lack of killer instinct and they didn't keep the tempo.

When Tuukka Rask was asked about the slow start in the second period, he was clearly frustrated.

"You tell me, you saw it," he snapped. "I don't know. We didn't have that same jump and we kind of backed off maybe a little bit. And they came at us pretty hard too. They played good hockey. I don't know. We just didn't find that same jump as the first 10 (minutes)."

It's one thing to ask a player, but to ask the goalie was kind of like asking him why didn't he score more.

Johnny Boychuk, the new guy that earned his spot in the roster was holding back tears as he was speaking to the media and you can tell his heart was into this.

"We're not really worried about that right now," he said. "We got our dreams crushed, winning a Stanley Cup, and I can't really think about anything but that right now."

Coach Julien said it best, "The bottom line is, we had a 3-0 lead in the series. We had a 3-0 lead tonight. We blew both," he said. "There's no excuses. We have to take the responsibility that goes with it. Everyone. We had four tries at it and we weren't able to do it."

The Too Many Men call by Linesman Greg Devorski did not settle well with Mark Recchi.

"I think that it's a terrible call. It's a 3-3 series, Game Seven, you don't make that call," Recchi said. "The referee was looking at the play the whole time and he didn't call it. The linesman called it. It was terrible judgment on his part but it is what it is now."

The call occurred with Marc Savard was supposed to come off the ice when Vladimir Sobotka jumped on for his shift.  Savard didn't see him jump on and wheeled back into the play instead.  A mental error that eventually cost them the trip to the ECF.

Come to think of it, there was an unprecedented amount of these calls in the playoffs this year.  It seems that the officiating was instructed to watch for this and boy, did they.  One would not think that the Bruins would lose the series after leading 3-0 but to lose with this penalty is like the Curse of the Bambino and Devorski will probably not be the most liked person in Boston for sometime to come.

So the Bruins are done for the season and the Flyers move on to take on the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre this Sunday.  It is hope that the roster's youngsters will learn from this that a full 60 minutes is required to take a game like this when both teams are on the verge of going home.  The Flyers got the bounces it needed and the Bruins did not play the full game after being up 3-0.

This June, Boston is looking to pick up Taylor Hall, or Tyler Seguin.  That and the injuries the Bruins have been left with should bring the Bruins to a good strong core and hopefully, the injury bug, when it arrives to the NHL for the 2010-11 season, will go visit another roster.

This is Cory Ducey saying "Hit Hard, But Keep It Clean "