Bruins Loss to Montreal In .Gifs: The Lucic Hates the Habs Edition
The Boston Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens never seems to disappoint. The Bruins lost 6-4, but lots of drama throughout the game made it highly entertaining even if, at the end, the Bruins fall short against rival Montreal.
Things got off to a rough start for Milan Lucic, who has a well-known beef with a few Canadiens, including Alexei Emelin. Emelin threw this hit early in the game, and Lucic was not happy about it. This would come back later in the game and cost the Bruins an opportunity to win. Lucic immediately tried to return the hit, but Emelin sidestepped him and he hit the boards.
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Three lead changes occurred throughout the game after the Bruins initially took the lead. Zdeno Chara got his first goal of the year on the power play when a David Krejci shot from the point deflected in off of his pants.
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The lead was short-lived. Max Pacioretty tied the game two and a half minutes later on a power play goal assisted by David Desharnais and Brendan Gallagher.
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The Bruins gave up a lot of odd-man rushes against the small, speedy Canadiens – an issue that plagued them in the playoffs last year and again plagued them all night. In this particular 3-on-2, Tuukka Raks made the save. It was one of his 18 saves before he was pulled later in the game.
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In the second period, the Habs thought they had the go-ahead goal, but it was ruled no good because of goaltender interference – and because the Canadiens forward pushed it in with his glove.
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It wasn’t long before the Canadiens did gain a 2-1 lead. At 7:43 of the second period, Brendan Gallagher scored his second goal of the season.
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40 seconds later, the game was tied again when Carl Soderberg netted his first goal of the season, assisted by Chris Kelly and Loui Eriksson.
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A lone Bruins fan celebrated the goal in the hostile Canadiens crowd.
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Brad Marchand and PK Subban earned offsetting matching minor penalties after Marchand slashed Subban in the groin. Subban went down, and the referee called him for embellishment. Subban was not happy about any of it.
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In another controversial play, the linesmen ruled an icing call that should not have been icing at all. This would directly lead to the Bruins next goal.
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On the faceoff in the Habs defensive zone after the icing, the Bruins gained control and Loui Eriksson scored his second goal of the season on a nice set up from Torey Krug. Chris Kelly won the faceoff and got the secondary assist.
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Halfway thorugh the game, it was noticed that a fan in the crowd at the Bell Centre was trying to distract Tuukka Rask and the Bruins with a green laser pointer.
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All seemed well as the final minutes of the second period approached and the Bruins had a 3-2 lead, but at 18:11 of the period, Jiri Sekac tied the game.
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To make matters worse, Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau (the artist formerly known as PA Parenteau) scored the go-ahead goal with only 25 seconds left in the second period. The Bruins trailed 4-3 going into the third period, and had to kill a penalty Brad Marchand took at the very end of the period.
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As the Bruins pushed the tie the game, Brendan Gallagher scored his second goal of the game and third of the season at 7:17 to give the Canadiens the first two-goal lead of the game, 5-3.
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That goal by Gallagher got Rask pulled after allowing 5 goals on 23 shots. Niklas Svedberg replaced him and didn’t give up a goal on the two saves he made in the final ten minutes of the game.
Simon Gagne got his first goal with the Bruins and his first NHL goal in over a year with just over five minutes left in the game to ut the lead to 5-4. The goal was a result of Gagne being promoted to the top line with David Krejci and Milan Lucic, rather than having Seth Griffith continuing to play there.
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In the final minutes, trailing 5-4 and pushing to tie the game, Milan Lucic got called for a very bad penalty. The penalty was bad in the sense that it put the Bruins in a horrible situation – with 1:20 left in the game, they would be on the penalty kill – and the temper tantrum Lucic threw as a result of the penalty call wasn’t pretty. The penalty was boarding.
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In the GIF below, Lucic can be seen making an obscene gesture to the Canadiens crowd, and then lifting his arms above his head like he was lifting the Stanley Cup.
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With Lucic in the box, the Bruins pulled Svedberg to get action 5-on-5 and push for the tying goal as they still trailed 5-4. Their attempts were unsuccessful, and Parenteau got his second goal of the game on the empty net.
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After the goal, Lucic mouthed off more to the referee and earned a misconduct, although there was only ten seconds left in the game. After the game ended, coach Claude Julien and one of the referees had a chat that appeared to end amicably.
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Our send-off GIF will be something fans of any team should appreciate: after Sekac scored his second period goal, his family was shown in the stands celebrating. The man losing his mind with happiness is Sekac’s father.
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