By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer

Put away your “jump to conclusions” mats, people. This series isn’t over yet. The Bruins aren’t done–yet.

But they sure will be facing a lot of pressure tonight as they look to avoid becoming only the third team in NHL history to blow a 3-0 series lead. It hasn’t happened since the Islanders shocked the hockey world in 1975–back when Gerald Ford was in office, the American troops were withdrawing from Vietnam and Mark Recchi was only 7 years old.

Media outlets everywhere are already handing this series to Philadelphia. Pessimism abounds in Boston; most fans have the paper bags ready, expecting the Bruins to embrace the dubious distinction of sports’
biggest chokers since, ironically, the 2004 Yankees.

And the worries aren’t unwarranted. The momentum has clearly shifted in the Flyers’ favor, and if ever there’s a situation where a game 7 puts more pressure on one team than another, this is it. The suddenly
impotent Bruins have pulled an incredible 180 since bursting out of the gate in the first three games, and all the pressure is on them to not just avoid a colossal collapse, but to prove that they are even capable of stemming the flow of Philadelphia’s relentless, physical attack.

To say that the turn of events has been shocking would be an understatement. After the Bruins pulled out victories in the first two games in neck-and-neck efforts, then cruised to a game 3 victory in Philadelphia, everyone had pretty much accepted the notion that they were headed for their first Eastern Conference final since 1992. The killer instinct from their first-round upset of Buffalo appeared to have carried over, and it didn’t look to be going away anytime soon; Tuukka Rask looked impenetrable in net, and the forward lines, seemingly out of nowhere, were clicking on all cylinders.

But it appears we all got a little ahead of ourselves. Perhaps everything was breaking a little too right. Somewhere between games 3 and 4, this suddenly potent Bruins lineup decided to transform back into the inconsistent jumble of underachievers they were for so many stretches of the regular season.

Of course, lost in the joy of taking a 3-0 series lead was the injury to David Krejci, the Bruins’ leading scorer in the second half of the season and the key cog on a line with Miroslav Satan and Milan Lucic, Boston’s most productive overall trio thus far in the postseason. His injury sure has become obvious since, with Satan going pointless since the goal he scored on the very same shift in which Mike Richards broke Krejci’s wrist with a devastating open-ice hit.

There’s no doubt that the Bruins have sorely missed Krejci’s offensive production, but regardless, they’ve played some downright uninspired hockey the past two games. The lack of intensity and desperation in such
important games has been mind-numbing. The Bruins dropped an embarrassing 4-0 stinker at home on Monday night when they could’ve taken the series in five games, and then failed to provide Tuukka Rask
with sufficient offensive production in a 2-1 game 6 loss on Wednesday. Just like in the regular season, the timing has been off in every game; the offense was clicking but Rask struggled in game 4, the opposite
occurred in game 6, and in game 5, well, everyone just plain sucked.

In order for the Bruins to take the win tonight, they’ll need to receive top-notch efforts on both fronts. If Rask plays like he did in games 4 and 5, the Bruins will surely lose; likewise, if the forwards can’t spot him more than a goal or two, this game will be extremely difficult to win.

Bottom line, the first goal tonight will be incredibly important. The Bruins need to strike first to keep the crowd in it; if the Flyers score first, the Bruins will be forced to press for the equalizer, and based on the past few games, bad things happen when they are put in a hole.

It seems the opposite was true in Round One, but did we really think we had figured out this mystery of a team?

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