...... and unless kovalev shows up monday.....

Kovalev's game is not up to the challenge of this series and this alone has deprived our team of two essential elements that were constituant to our identity this season,..... a very good offensive line when 5 on 5 and our great power play machine.

Handicaped as a consequence of it and further deprived with the weakening of our second line in Koivu's absence,.... maybe we should feel lucky that we have not been ousted already and still have a chance left next monday.

Boston have kept progressing throughout the series and their game last night was their best of the lot,... their defensive coverage is better than ours, their passing is more intelligent and better executed, their forechecking is outstanding and they are better at creating scoring chances than we are....... and last but not least this team can now score... as we know it too well.

We have a chance on monday but we have a long way to go while they dont.

Despite having a better roster in game 6 ( Saku, Bouillon ) our game remained tentative and error proned compared with the Bruins,... can that be fixed in one day ? you tell me..... but even if our cohesion improved it would still be a tossed up without Kovalev making his line and our PP much better than seen in the first six games,..... I have my doubts that it will happen,.... seeing Kovalev slashed on Ward today at the risk of being penalised and seeing him missing out on getting the puck out of our zone at the most crucial of times makes me think that his head has not been where it should have been in this series,.... and if he takes on to redeemed himself in the lenth of one game this will only make matter worst ( for his line and our PP ) as he will hang on to the puck too long.... and this will put us back to square one,.... not a place you want to be,... as I said, compared with the Bruins we have a way to go..... and contextually,... a long way to go might be a more appropriate way to put it.