Avalanche, Bruins the real deal
If there’s one thing we learned over the weekend at Lake Tahoe it was that the Colorado Avalanche and the Boston Bruins look the real deal in 2020-21. Okay, so saying we only discovered that this weekend is a bit of a stretch given how elite those two teams are, but you also have to consider who they were playing.
Let’s start with the Avs who absolutely dominated the Vegas Golden Knights from start to finish in Saturday’s game, outshooting them 39-29, and 17-8 in the first period, and the game never seemed that close.
Colorado just looked more ready to go from the first drop of the puck, and they also seemed more equipped once the game resumed more than eight hours later, and they have outplayed the Golden Knights in all three of their meetings so far this season.
Many hockey experts feel as though the Golden Knights, who are an absolutely loaded team in their own right, and the Avalanche will be the two heavyweights in the Western Conference for the foreseeable future, and the Avs proved on Saturday that, for now at least, they may well just have the edge given the abundance of talent they have at their disposal, led by elite stars in Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.
Maybe Sunday’s outcome wasn’t as much of a surprise given that the Boston Bruins have been an elite team for years now, coupled with the fact that they had already beaten the Philadelphia Flyers in their previous four meetings prior to Sunday, dominating their East Division rivals in the majority of those games.
It was the same story on Sunday night despite it being a different venue as the B’s flexed their attacking muscles once again, with David Pastrnak’s 10th career hat trick, and his second of the year against the Flyers, spearheading the Bruins to a big, big 7-3 win.
They also got contributions from up and down the lineup with rising star defenseman Charlie McAvoy recording his second goal of the year, while Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic and Nick Ritchie also lighting the lamp and the 11-3-2 Bruins look an absolute juggernaut right now.
And, while the Vegas Golden Knights are an elite team that will be a dangerous outfit in the postseason and the Philadelphia Flyers were missing six key players from their lineup, there is no doubt that we were treated to a tantalizing glimpse of just how dangerous the Colorado Avalanche and the Boston Bruins are when they are at the peak of their powers, which they both were on what was a memorable weekend in a beautiful location at Lake Tahoe.