| 18 October 2011
The 2nd period started looking much like the first- chances for Boston, another goal for Carolina. After another failed power play attempt and a goal from none other than Joni Pitkanen, the frustration that has been filling the Garden early in the season boiled over. After Shawn Thornton failed to find a dance partner, a raging Nathan Horton forced some action with Jay Harrison. Horton wouldn't end up the one with Harrison though as the captain himself, Zdeno Chara felt the need to dive into the action and take on the Carolina D man, knocking him down and then picking him up to give him some more. Lucic and Horton would both pick up partners themselves and find time in the box for roughing. In an interesting turn of events, Cam Ward would come out and start scolding Chara post fight which of course lead to an annoyed Tuukka Rask coming down ice to challenge his counter part. While the cheers of the fans asked for the fight, Ward would not oblige.
The result of the scrum was Chara with a 10 minute game misconduct and Lucic and Horton both serving minors to give the Canes a 5 on 3 opportunity. The Bruins penalty kill was up for the job and would even kill a subsequent penalty to Seidenberg. What they along with the the even strength and power play lines would fail to do though is get a puck past Cam Ward and into the back of the net. Through 2, the Bruins beat Ward with the shot 5 times- only to find iron on all 5 shots. It's no wonder that the frustration finally boiled over as it did in this period.
Going into the third the Bruins need to keep the emotions up as it is when they play their best hockey. They require a physical game and as suggested earlier, may go into dump in chase mode and really lay it on the Carolina defense. The outcome of the exchanges has to be Carolina defense caught behind their net and forwards turned to miss their assignments. The Bruins need to use this to continue to create the gaps and generate scoring chances (while following it up with crashing the net). Ward isn't a goalie that is easy to score one on so they need to do their best to make his life difficult in the third. While it's unlikely that the Black and Gold will go back to the fighting antics of the 2nd, don't be completely surprised if they show back up early with the 4th line causing a stir and keeping emotions high.
It's going to be a rough and tough 3rd- a storm is brewing in Boston. The question is, who's going to weather it?
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