Your Northeast Division Champs, the Montreal Canadiens, got bounced in the first round last night. Thanks, Ottawa. You did good this round. Feel free to do the same to the Pens in the next round, too, if that's who you get.

For those wondering, DOY isn't doing the Canadiens Eulogy this year. We're guessing a Senators blog is. We've been tapped to do another team, though, but you may/may not want to ever see it depending on how sadistic you are.

Season wrap-up presser for Montreal should be fun. DOY buddy @Camfan81 has a few ideas on what we might hear:

Johnny Boychuk was a man among boys last night, especially early in the second period where Boychuk blocked a shot and kept going, obviously in a lot of pain. He would later leave the game and return. 

Our German buddy, German B's fan put this together and it's too good to not share.

Man, fuck Lupul. 

If you missed it last night, let me paint the picture for you. The Bruins and Leafs are battling in a 3-3 tie with less than 7 minutes left in the third period. Toronto is firing puck on net right now and the Bruins are scrambling to get the puck out of their zone. They are finally able to get the puck up ice when Chara is called for a "high sticking" penalty. 

What? I figured it was a case of "2 minutes for Chara being tall", something we've come to expect watching Chara bang bodies around. But then you look at the .gif above and it's clear that Lupul embellished this call so bad that somewhere Michel Therrien was nodding his head and smiling in approval. 

Luckily the Bruins killed that penalty and Dion Phaneuf did Dion Phaneuf things to lead to a Bruins overtime victory. 

But seriously, shit like this needs to start being called - or at least fined after the fact. If you're going to call embellishment (as they did with Lucic in Game 3), make it consistent. 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OVERTIME WIN! WE LOVE YOU DAVID KREJCI! WE WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES! ENJOY THE FREE HATS! KREJCI THREE GOALS TO GET A 3-1 SERIES LEAD! WE HOPE HE CHEATED ON ALL THREE GOALS! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

EVERY MIDDLE FINGER IN TORONTO IS POINTED AT KREJCI AND WE LOVE IT!

Hi, I'm Robb.  You may remember me from Twitter, DOYLive, or the fact that I actually used to post like...a year ago.  I wasn't going to participate in this year's Beard-a-thon, but the Bruins button-hooked me into it by donating to One Fund Boston.  

Therefore I stand before you, humbling asking that you donate money to my beard so that we can help people affected by the marathon bombings and say "Fuck You" to terrorists.  My target goal is to raise $1000, but I'm hoping to break that by the time the playoffs are done.  Given where the money is going, I'll be growing this beard throughout the duration of the playoffs, no matter how far the Bs go.

So please, give what you can, if you can.  I did a clean shave before Game 1, so my beard may not look like much now, but like the monster in the second half of an episode of Power Rangers, it will soon grow to monstrous proportions.

You can donate here: https://www.beardathon.com/bruins/rjpizzuto/profile.aspx

Thanks in advance everyone!

The Vezina Nominations were just announce and Tuukka Rask didn't make the cut. Whaaaaaa!?!?

Bobrovksy, Niemi and Lundqvist are your finalists.

Bobrovsky: 21 wins in 37 GS, 1010 SVs, .932 SV%, 2.00 GAA, 4 SO

Niemi: 24 wins in 43 GS, 1127 SVs, .924 SV%, 2.16 GAA, 4 SO

Lundqvist: 24 wins in 43 GS, 1102 SVs, .926 SV%, 2.05 GAA, 2 SO

As our buddy Cornelius pointed out, the finalists are goalies with the best SV% who faced 1000+ shots. Rask didn't quite hit that mark. He didn't have the games started or total saves as the other three but he led the league in SOs and his GAA & SV% makes him better suited for that third nomination slot.

Rask: 19 wins in 34 GS, 910 SVs, .929 SV%, 2.00 GAA, 5 SOs

Tuukka so good when the Vezina nomination came his way he instinctively kicked it to the side boards to start a breakout.

— Jeff Israel (@jeffisrael25) May 8, 2013

Bobrovsky is going to win this award hands down. Shouldn't be close. Would've nice to seen Rask get a nod, but oh well. A Stanley Cup and a Conn Smythe is better anywyas.

SERIES 2-1 BOSTON

"There's only one true superstar of the decade, true superstar of the milenium! You know who that is? The Rask will tell you how that is! Toronto, that is the Leafs beating, puck eating, trail blazing, save raising, stronger than a bear, stronger than a buck, the biggest thing to hit Canada because THE MAPLE LEAFS SUCK!" - The Rask 

Tuukkamania is running wild in Toronto right now. Rask was awesome against Toronto in Game 3, stopping 45 shots and grabbing the win. I guess it helps when you have turds like Dion Phaneuf playing for the Leafs. The guy is a useless tool - it's amazing. How a captain can be that bad on offense, defense and in transition is amazing to me. He can't do ANYTHING! He laid a huge hit on Paille in Game 2, then a huge hit on Peverley in Game 3 and then got burnt by Danny Paille for a goal. 

(stick tap to Swervin81 at HFBoards)

Seriously though, look at this. Look at what Tuukka Rask is doing in net for this team right now: 

Jesus Christ. If that was James Reimer, Boston would have scored about 3 goals on that play alone. And speaking of Reimer, he's a rebound machine. He has to have his pads greased with Crisco or something because some of those rebounds have been unbelievable. It makes you question how Toronto is actually a playoff team this season. 

Click the image for a higher-res image

The numbers themselves tell you that Reimer has just been a huge bag of shit. If the Bruins actually tried in Game 2, we could be talking about an elimination game tonight. It begs the question though, does Toronto actually show up tonight? One would have to think that they would, especially with such a shitty showing at home (for the first time in 9 years and 2 days, in case you forgot). 

But isn't that what we expect from the Maple Leafs. For a lot of them, this is their first time in the playoffs. I mean, Phil Kessel's last trip to Season Two was in 2008-2009. Other than Kessel and Phaneuf, who has some playoff experience on this team that's a major player? For BOZOak, Kadri, Grabovski and Reimer, this is their first time at the big dance. 

Sometimes experience can be something that's overplayed, but I think in this series it's a big deal. There's a lot of pressure on the Leafs to perform based on the sweater they wear. The city demands perfection despite a long Cup-less streak and an alomst decade-long playoff streak. Plus, they're putting their eggs into the Phil Kessel basket. 

I have nothing against Phil Kessel. I don't believe in the "Thank You Kessel" chants, mostly because they're older than dirt. I'm glad he whined his way out of Boston because the payoff was better than him staying. People like to point to the stats comparing Kessel and Seguin - but no one really takes into account the difference in systems. 

Also take into account that Phil Kessel was a big reason why Paille's goal happened in Game 3. It's all about turnovers folks and Toronto is giving them away like they're glory holes in Montreal. I've seen group orgies cleaner than the Leafs in transition. It's a wonderful thing. 

And if you ever want to know the supersticious reason as to why Phil Kessel will never win anything, well...

Also his girlfriend is way out of his league. 

I'm sure Randy Carlyle will cry again after tonight's game. I'm glad Julien told him to effectively shut his trap, but watch the faceoffs tonight. I wouldn't be surprised if the Bruins were tossed from the dot more than usual because Randy-Bo-Bandy had to open his mouth and complain about the Bruins cheating. 

It's obvious that Boston is cheating on faceoffs. They only led the NHL in faceoffs during the regular season with 56% of the draws won while Toronto was 15th with 50%. 

But hey - what so we know? We're homers who love Crosby and hate America. 

After the jump, the rest of the preview...

(Cryin' With Carlyle is a feature that may or may not run throughout the rest of the Bruins-Maple Leafs series depending on how lazy the DOY staff is and how much more useless crying Randy Carlyle does)

In today's episdoe of Cryin' With Carlyle, Coach Randy is SUPER MAD that the Bruins are "cheating" at the face-off dot and that the silly ole referees are FAVORING the Bruins. He is VERY convinced he is correct. He even bet all his hair on it. 

We did the research with Randy... and unfortunately the information we uncovered is very damning for the Bruins. It looks like Randy might be correct.

After a subpart Game 2 the Boston Bruins needed to come out in Game 3 with a physical presence and a lot of pressure. They needed to quiet the ACC ASAP and keep the crowd out of it. They needed to keep winning in the face-off dot and limit the turnovers. And for the most part the Bruins did exactly that.

They jumped to a sweet 4-1 lead after two periods. We're prettsure Boston's collective butts clenched with the Leafs scored early in the third period to cut the game to two and then began peppering Tuukka Rask like it was a shooting galler, but they held on to take the series 2 games to 1.

Rask had 46 saves but we're not sure any of them were timely. /sarcasm

And the Bruins "first line" is finally looking like a first line. They had a combine 8 points in last night's game. Unreal. Horton had the game winner because he's Nathan Horton and that's what he does.

I'm not sure what the issue was Saturday night, but the Bruins looked like they were playing a regular season game in the middle of April out there. Are these guys fucking serious? That game was probably one of the worst displays of hockey I've seen from Boston this season. There was little jump to their step after a dominating Game 1. They seemed to be floating around out there. Much like Pittsburgh against New York, you have to try if you want to win games. You don't win games on paper. 

Tonight will be a telling tale for the boys. It's the first playoff game in the ACC since 2004 and it will be loud. I mean, that's not saying much when you watch games on NESN because the Garden has sounded quiet on TV. I tried looking for decible levels during the playoffs, but I haven't been able to find any. Either way, Toronto is going to feed off of this energy in a big way. 

It all stems from the Bruins finding their drive. 

I know we use the term "lazy" a lot when it comes to the Boston Bruins, but I think that it's starting to be engrained in who they are. This team is either a bunch of world beaters or they are getting stomped on. There's really no middle ground. Saturday night, they got stomped on. 

And I don't want to hear this bullshit about the refs. 

(I forget who made this, but thanks)

The refs have been horrible all season long and continue to be horrible in every playoff series. Welcome to the NHL, where their referees are straight garbage. If the Bruins allow the referees to get in their heads, they deserve to lose. They're fucking professionals - they can't sulk because the refs have given the edge to the Maple Leafs. 

Is it frustrating to watch your team get 8 seconds of power play time in one game? Yup, especially when Toronto was just as physical as they were - but those are the breaks. You know what doesn't win you games? Bitching about it. I have a better idea, stop being pussies and score some fucking goals. 

Especially with this guy in net: 

But then again, we have a coach who is making the NHL's active leading goal scorer playing with Rich Peverley and Chris Kelly. How about you put a finisher with Jaromir Jagr and not two players who finished with a combined 9 goals this season. How about moving Brad Marchand down to the third line and having Jagr with Bergeron and Seguin? 

I mean, I have nothing against Kelly and Peverley, outside of the fact that neither of them are worth the amount of money they're being paid, but you can't expect Jaromir Jagr to perform well when those two can't get out of their own way. I mean, put the guy with Dan Paille and Greg Campbell at least. 

I can't do this anymore. 

I hope this team comes out with some fire in their belly because if leave Toronto down 3-1, I don't see a way they come back from it. Tonight is a pivatol game for the Bruins. 

After the jump, the rest of the preview...