Can’t we just get along? Oh, for the sake of our sweet and sutured memories, let’s hope not.
The Bruins and Flyers open their best-of-seven playoff series with a matinee today at the Garden, and once was the time when a postseason matchup between these squads guaranteed two-handed spears to their collective guts, blindside sucker punches to the jaw, full-scale brawls with gloves, sticks, and sweaters strewn all over the ice.
And then, then, the puck went down for the opening faceoff.
What we have here today, in the kinder, gentler, and cleaned-up-for-network-TV NHL, is a pair of clubs that still pick and choose their nastiness, but for the most part stick to polite, intelligent, standard Original 30 rules of engagement.
The Bruins follow the conservative, defensive posture employed by the vast majority of NHL clubs. They don’t attack with the puck as much as they attack against it. They play the game from back to front, relying on the game’s premier shutdown defenseman in Zdeno Chara, and a rising star in net, Tuukka Rask, to lead the way.
“We like to get a lead,’’ said second-year winger Blake Wheeler, noting that first goals were hard to come by in the series against Buffalo, “and then suffocate teams with our defense.’’
The Flyers were somewhat similar in their approach until they tossed John Stevens from behind the bench early in the season and brought in former Bruins assistant coach Peter Laviolette to direct the end of Broad Street. Now the Flyers are one of the few teams to fuel with higher octane, press the attack, oftentimes risk engaging two forecheckers. The nerve! What once was a standard, aggressive way to play the game is now deemed high-risk/high-reward in an era in which the game is still trying to shed its errant, trap-happy ways.
“Peter wants us on the go,’’ Flyers forward Danny Briere noted this week, “to attack at all times.’’
The same approach netted Laviolette a Stanley Cup in Carolina (’06), but Hurricanes ownership felt attacking hockey, though it made for a Cup, didn’t make for much sense. Really. Not kidding here. Sometimes it makes one think the “H’’ in the NHL should mean, “Huh?’’
To open this series, though, we might see a somewhat muted approach from the Flyers, given that two of their prime offensive assets, Jeff Carter (leading goal scorer in the regular season) and Simon Gagne, each had foot surgery April 23. Their valued blood ‘n’ guts defensive winger, Ian Laperriere, took a Paul Martin slapper to the kisser in Round 1 against the Devils and must sit out while a bruise on his brain dissipates.
The Carter-Gagne-Laperriere losses could have the Flyers: 1. challenged to score and 2. more conservative with Laviolette’s entertaining unleash-the-hungry-dog attack.
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