Filed under: BruinsWhat a maddening season it had to be for the Boston Bruins. We already know about the history they made in the second round of the playoffs by becoming just the third team in NHL history to lose a 3-0 series lead, dropping four straight games to the eventual Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia Flyers. But the fact they even made the playoffs, and advanced to the second round, one game away from the NHL's final four, is kind of a remarkable accomplishment in itself. After all, no team in the NHL scored fewer goals than Boston's 196, an incredible 74-goal drop from the previous season when it was the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference and the second-highest scoring team in the league.
Making the playoffs as the lowest-scoring team in the league is something that hadn't been done since the 1988-89 Vancouver Canucks (in a 21-team league, mind you). Of course, to help offset the stunning lack of offense was an equally impressive effort defensively and in net that limited teams to fewer than 30 shots per game, while rookie Tuukka Rask led the NHL in goals-against and save percentage, finishing ahead of Buffalo's Ryan Miller -- the Vezina Trophy winner -- in both categories.
Still, where did all the offense go? The team's leading goal-scorer in 2009-10 was Marco Sturm with 22, and that's not likely to strike fear in many teams around the NHL. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
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