Bruins vs Lightning game 1 summary

Boston Bruins' Tyler Seguin is congratulated at the bench after scoring against the Tampa Bay Lightning during the first period in Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference final playoff series, Saturday, May 14, 2011, in Boston. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

After a long layoff for both teams, it was expected that they may have a slow start. Well the Bruins had a bad first period and the Lightning looked good capitalizing on Bruins mistakes. The Lightning managed to score three goals in the first period and that would be all they needed as they beat the Bruins in game 1 by the score 5-2. The Lightning scored the three goals in a total of 1:25 during the period which set a new team record. Tyler Seguin would answer for the Bruins scoring on a breakaway beating Roloson low glove side. That would be Seguin's first NHL playoff goal in his 1st NHL playoff game.

In the second period, no scoring happened, just a bunch of power-plays.

In the third period, the Lightning scored a power-play goal and then added an empty net goal. Johnny Boychuk would score a late goal, his 3rd of the playoffs, as the puck deflected off the Lightning's Bergeron's stick. Nathan Horton and Milan Lucic got late roughing and misconduct penalties in the period. Horton got tangled up with Dominic Moore, remember they had something going during a regular season game as well, and when Horton got up he threw a gloved punch at Moore. Lucic then came in and threw a gloved punch at Victor Hedman, who went down quite easily.

Tim Thomas played in net and made 29 saves on 33 shots. Thomas is now 8-4 with a 2.19 GAA and a .932 save percentage. You can only fault Thomas on the Brett Clark goal as he should have had that and maybe the Teddy Purcell goal, but Kaberle really messed up turning the puck over in that area next to Thomas.

Both teams had 33 shots on net. The Lightning dominated the faceoff circle going 41-26, which shows how much Patrice Bergeron means to the faceoff game for the Bruins. The Bruins led the game in hits 26-23.

Notes from the game
Patrice Bergeron did not play and Tyler Seguin was in the lineup. Possibly some good news for game 2 from Joe Haggerty via Twitter: "Indications I got from talking to few players inside #bruins dressing room is that Patrice Bergeron is going to play in Game 2 vs #Lightning"

Besides Johnny Boychuk and Tyler Seguin you could possibly say nobody else on the Bruins showed up for this game. Seguin had a goal and an assist with 3 shots on net and 2 hits. Boychuk had some big hits in this game, including a hip check on Steven Stamkos and a hit knocking down Simon Gagne that brought Vincent Lecavalier in, which then Boychuk threw a gloved punch at him.

Seguin only had 9:38 of ice time in the game. The Versus crew said he had 5 minutes of ice time after two periods. He was the Bruins best forward by far and got very little ice time. That makes no sense to me.

Dennis Seidenberg was -3 while Zdeno Chara was -2.

Defenseman Adam McQuaid returned to the lineup. He had 12:29 of ice time and was +1.

At one point during the third period, Mark Recchi was helmetless and going at it with cheapshotter Randy Jones. Good to see the fire Recchi still has in his game.

Hopefully we won't see this kind of effort for the rest of the series from the Bruins and I hope they woke up from this game. I hope Lucic and Horton don't get suspended for their actions in the third period showing their frustration.

Onto the next one
Game 2 is on Tuesday in Boston at 8pm ET.

The Bruins still need 8 more wins to bring the Cup to Boston.