Toucher & Rich: Have The Bruins Figured Out Carey Price?
BOSTON (CBS) - Rookie defenseman Dougie Hamilton made some comments Saturday following the Bruins 5-3 win that were a topic of discussion Monday morning on 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich show.
So far in this series six of the seven Bruins goals (not counting the empty netter) have all been high, and Hamilton acknowledged after the game that their strategy has been to aim high on Canadiens goalie Carey Price.
Butterfly goalies are susceptible to the high shots, and the guys wondered if the B's have "figured him out" so to speak, so for more clarification on that Toucher and Rich brought in CSNNE's Joe Haggerty.
"You could clearly see in the third period during the comeback that every time [Carey Price] sensed trouble with a player in front of him screening him he was dropping down and leaving the whole top half of the net to shoot at," said Haggs.
"Not only when there's a screen in front, but you can also see when he goes side to side like that lateral pass from [Torey] Krug from to Reilly Smith for the game winner, you could see Price dropping down and getting uncomfortable and out of sorts. That's exactly what they want to do.
"The Bruins want to aim high on him. They want to get traffic in front of the net and they want to move the puck laterally to get him moving post to post. Once you start to do that I don't care how good a goaltender is playing, he's gonna have trouble."
After Game 1, despite the struggles of rookie defenseman Matt Bartkowski, Haggs was a proponent of him getting the start over Andrej Meszaros in Game 2 because of his puck moving ability against a speedy Montreal team.
Meszaros got the start in Game 2, and Haggs says coach Claude Julien won't go back to Bartkowski unless Meszaros plays his way out of the lineup.
"They want to go with the veteran player, and a guy that will maybe give them a little more offense. He's gonna make some mistakes defensively. He's not quite as fast a skater as Bartkowski is, but I think Meszaros has a little more poise at this point in his career and there's a little bit of a trust factor there. He's gonna get a chance to run with it now."
Listen below for the full discussion, including the struggle in play from Jarome Iginla and much more:
Have The Bruins Figured Out Carey Price?
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