Making a case for and against the Boston Bruins
Home ice advantage and with a bucketload of previous Stanley Cup experience on their roster, most experts are giving the Boston Bruins the slight edge in tonight’s contest.
You can see why given the fact that the home team in Stanley Cup Finals are able to boast a 12-4 record.
They carved out a sublime regular season, posting a 49-24-9 record only to be overshadowed by the juggernaut that was the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference.
Boston have been here, done that and got the ring having lifted the Stanley Cup back in 2011 and they will be looking to add a seventh championship banner to the rafters tonight.
We’ve picked out some reasons as to why you should and shouldn’t root for the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final tonight…
For:
David Ortiz – The sporting world was rocked earlier this week after news broke that Boston Red Sox legend David Ortiz was shot in an horrific attack in the Dominican Republic on Sunday.
Thankfully, the three-time World Series Champion is in a stable condition and looks set to make a full recovery.
Ortiz is adored by the Red Sox and by the city of Boston in general having been adopted by the city as one of their own.
He has been a regular at TD Garden in the past and you wouldn’t be surprised if the Bruins players take to the ice with extra motivation to win a championship for one of Boston’s most beloved sons.
Zdeno Chara – Hockey guy is a term that is thrown around a lot given the incredibly tough nature of the men that play this wonderful sport.
Chara is perhaps the epitome of that saying after playing in Game 5 with a broken jaw sustained in Game 4.
The 6’9″ and 250 lb blueliner is well known for his toughness anyway but he has taken that to a whole new level this series and it would be pretty cool to see the 42-year-old lift the Stanley Cup for a second time given everything he’s sacrificed for the Bruins.
Against:
Boston – This is fairly simple. Hands up if you are getting just a little cheesed off at the amount of glory the city of Boston have been able to cover themselves in of late? Yeah, us too.
With the New England Patriots collecting rings like they are going out of fashion and the Boston Red Sox adding a pennant as recently as last year, New England have been bathing in success and a flurry of championships for quite some time now.
Let’s face it, the Bruins have been pulling their weight too with a Stanley Cup in 2011 and another one tonight would just add further insult to injury for the rest of the sporting world.
Boston, we’ve got nothing against you personally but let someone else have a share of the glory for once, okay?
Brad Marchand – Bags of skill and an elite scorer in the NHL as backed up by his 100 points (36 goals, 64 assists) in the regular season in 2018-19.
However, Marchand is a pest and, quite simply, a pain in the backside for the rest of the NHL. Whether it is licking opponents, breaking sticks, cheap headshots or just being a tormentor, the 31-year-old hasn’t got many friends outside of Boston.
And there’s no doubt that he’ll be up to some of his old tricks tonight in order to give his team an edge, giving the neutrals even more reason to root against the Bruins.