With six games in the books, and such an evenly matched series one might say that game seven Wednesday night is going to be a toss up. However with the young legs and the experience going in the Bruins favor I like the Bruins chances to advance to the eastern conference semi-finals for the fourth consecutive season.
With the Bruin’s recent playoff success in the past four years, and having the youngest members of this Bruins squad of 2011-12 have plenty of playoff experience, one could foresee the bruins easily taking game seven. The Bruins victors of all three of their game seven matchups in last years playoffs you can strongly believe that the players will know what to expect when they first hit the ice in front of a sold out crowd at TD Bank North Garden on Wednesday night.
Although the Capitals do have moderate playoff success of recent years, nothing that they have experienced can compare to the Bruins playoff run last year. With three game seven victory’s last year, the Bruins will be able to calmly play and should be able to stick to their game plan better than the Caps, especially while skating on the TD Bank North Garden’s ice. The combination of inexperience, tired legs and playing away from the Verizon Center, leads me to believe that the Capitals have a sizeable disadvantage heading into tomorrow night’s game.
With tons of fresh and rejuvenated legs skating for the Bruins on Wednesday, you can expect them to be able to out skate the Caps. With a goal hungry Tyler Seguin finally getting a sweet taste of a playoff goal for the first time this year, you can expect him to fly around the ice and get into great position to set him self up for multiple tallies. During game 6 you could see a more focused attack from the Bruins youth, who finally seemed to have lost their playoff jitters and play more effectively than the first five games of the series. With Krejci and Seguin each putting up a pair of points in game six, as a Bruins fan you can be more confident with what the younger members of the bruins are going to bring to the table.
Finally we come to the goaltenders. With Braden Holtby and Tim Thomas both playing well, a crucial deciding factor of how well they play is prior experience. Tim Thomas, the 2011 playoff MVP and two-time Vezina trophy winner, defiantly is the favorite of the two goaltenders in game seven. Although Braden Holtby has been playing very well all series long, a loud game seven crowd in Boston should be able to rattle the young net minder.
Even with the Capitals’ talented top two lines, I feel like they don’t have enough to top the Bruins. With Ovechkin scoring his first goal of the series in game 6, you never know if hell be able to come out and play like the super star he is capable of being. If Alexander Semin and Nicholas Backstrom come out firing, they should be able to keep the Bruins on their heels, but without an A+ performance from the Cap's top two lines, the Bruins should be able to take this series at home.
In conclusion, this Wednesday the Bruins have the advantage to make the caps bow down out of the series, and advance to the semifinals for the fourth consecutive year.