Saturday was a good day for teams named after animals (the Bruins and Ducks) and a bad day for teams named after types of people (Kings and Canadiens). It was a pretty entertaining night of hockey, all told, even if the Anaheim Ducks completely stopped playing offense in their 2-0 shutout victory of the Los Angeles Kings in Game 4.

Okay? Okay. Let it always be known that I was who I am, oh give me to a (dobber hockey) rambling man…

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Let’s start in Boston, where the Bruins power-play – dangerous all year, though hapless so far in this second round Stanley Cup playoff series – scored twice in 32 seconds to put away the Canadiens in Game 5.

At this point it’s probably time ot face the fact that the Habs have very probably blown a series they could’ve won, and the fact is, icing a suboptimal lineup was a big factor in their demise. I know the Bruins are a big, vicious, bully team but having Douglas Murray in the lineup when you have access to players like Francis Boullion, Jarred Tinordi and Nathan Bealieu just plays right into Boston’s hands. 

Murray wasn’t nearly as bad in Game 5 as he was in Game 4 – he was on the ice for a goal against, but it was his partner Alexei Emelin who really blew the coverage – but Game 4 was a contest an underdog side like the Canadiens just needed to have. Now? Now Boston’s inevitably had their “power-play cashes in” game, and the Canadiens are on the ropes. They’ll need a mammoth outing from Price and company in Montreal on Monday just to force Game 7.

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Boston’s third-line has been doing an insane amount of damage, and came through in a big way in Game 3. With the performance of Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith and Matt Fraser; a new strange notion has begun to emerge: that the fruits of the Tyler Seguin trade are powering Boston in the postseason. What a great deal that was then for the Bruins – see, look how Fraser, Smith and Eriksson are contributing!

It’s really stupid – that was a deal that was a loser in the short-term, and is going to stink like a decomposing corpse in a few years time. Smith, Eriksson and Fraser are all nice pieces, and Joe Morrow’s another. But Tyler Seguin is a 22-year-old who just scored 37 goals and managed better than a point per game. He’s a bonafide, star, top-line center – and he’s several years away from reaching the peak of his powers. Those types of players aren’t easy to find.

A lot is made about his postseason offensive struggles, but those are very probably just luck based and have nothing to do with some intangible inability to raise his game in the playoffs. For my money, he dominated the Ducks in round one and was a few bounces away from leading the Stars to the second round…

More importantly: it looks like the wheels have fallen off for Bruins top-line center David Krejci. Krejci has been extraordinarily unfortunate in the postseason so far, but his line is also getting pummelled at even-strength – losing the territorial battle massively, while generating nothing offensively and logging the most minutes of any Bruins forward-line. On Saturday night Boston’s top-line of Jarome Iginla, Milan Lucic and Krejci managed just a single shot on goal at even-strength. Think Seguin may have helped there?

Forward depth is critical, and it’s great for Boston that their third-line is crushing it. But Boston’s third line was good anyway and that’ll happen against a team like the Canadiens that is pretty limited along the blue-line (beyond their stellar top-pairing of course). Against the Chicago’s, the New York’s, the Pittsburgh’s, and the Los Angeles’ of the world – having a top-line that isn’t a complete liability at five-on-five, and make no mistake: that’s what Krejci’s line has been – could prove critical.

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Maybe Krejci is battling through injury, actually I’d wager that’s probably the case, but could Boston have netted a bounty of useful depth pieces in a deal involving Krejci – a center who is about to leave his prime – as opposed to the 21-year-old (at the time) Seguin, a player with four or five years left in his?

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P.K. Subban’s goal on Rask, though it was too little to late in Game 5, was completely absurd. What a player.

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After lighting up the SHL in 2012-13, Bruins forward Carl Soderbergh – who scored his first career playoff goal on Saturday, but has been nails all postseason – has proved a useful NHLer almost immediately. Makes me wonder if players like high-scoring 6,3 latebloomer Dennis Rasmussen or former Blues draft pick Simon Hjalmarsson might be worth a shot. Wouldn’t surprise me to see either player brought overseas this offseason, frankly.

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Shawn Thornton sprayed Subban with his waterbottle as Subban skated by the Bruins bench during the play. What’s weirder – that Mr. “plays the right way/model of enforcer integrity” Thornton would stoop so low (or so Clowe), or that he had an impact of any kind on a third period in the playoffs?

Obviously this Thornton thing is going to be the outrage flavour of the rest of the weekend, and fair enough, this is Habs v. Bruins afterall; and 2014 is the year of outrage. What Thornton did isn’t part of the game, and it’s weak, and he should probably be fined a modest amount for it. It’s not insanely dangerous or anything to get self-righteous about though, it’s just a dick move.

In other words, save me your outrage. But also save me any long testosterone drenched soliloquys casting Thornton as some ideal of the honorable enforcer. 

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Worth noting about the Thornton/Subban incident. Subban went over to the bench and made a move faking like he was going to do something after Thornton squirted him. Thornton flinched, and flinched hard.  

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Over in Anaheim, Bruce Boudreau is pressing all of the right buttons and the Ducks are back into a series no one expected them to win. Let’s recap Boudreau’s lineup decisions and how they’ve paid off in Games 3 + 4:

Game 3: inserts Kyle Palmieri back into the forward lineup, plays Frederik Andersen over Jonas Hiller, dresses Sami Vatanen to help revamp the Ducks power-play. Result: Andersen plays well until his injury, Palmieri serves as useful depth and provides some surprising physical edge in a depth role, and Vatanen keys a Ducks power-play Renaissance (they’d score two PP goals in the game).

Game 4: Goes with John Gibson, bumps Devante Smith-Pelly to the top-line to replace an injured Matt Beleskey. Result: Gibson records a shutout in his playoff debut, Palmieri destroys Dustin Brown, Smith-Pelly opens the scoring off of a sick feed from Corey Perry.

The Ducks aren’t level with Los Angeles going into Game 5 without some of Boudreau’s slick adjustments. Kudos to him.

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In addition to making some nice in-series alterations to his roster, Boudreau was spitting comedic fire after Game 4. First of all he wouldn’t confirm his Game 5 starter (but, like, come on). “Heck, we’ve still got Bobkov,” Boudreau joked, referring to Ducks prospect and non-tender candidate Igor Bobkov – who spent the majority of his season in the ECHL. 

Then he was asked about whether he’d made any adjustments to win the game. “Our gaps were good, but in the second period I was thinking about this Corsi shit,” was his rather spectacular response. The Ducks did tempt fate in the second period as they were outshot 12-0. In fact they only managed 4 shots in the latter 40 minutes of the game. 

But Gibson’s unflappable performance and the team’s excellent shot-blocking – they blocked 25 shots in the game, which has been their M.O. for a while – allowed the Ducks to protect the 2-0 lead. Boudreau’s boys looked at the God of Regression and said, as Syrio Forel might, “Not Today!”

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Speaking of analytics, the NHL is preparing to test SportsVU-like tracking technologies next season, with an eye towards implementing league-wide microstat tracking of some type for the 2015-16 campaign. If you’re not familiar with some of the data a similar league-wide endeavor by the NBA has produced, SportsVU in the NBA has tracked stuff like “a player’s shooting percentage after x-number of dribbles,” or “distance travelled” by x-player during a game, or “percentage of pick and rolls that result in x-player driving to the net.”

Now imagine having access to similar-ish data in hockey? What would you most want to know? Here’s several categories I dream about:

“Average speed of x-player’s slapshot on one-timers (particularly Shea Weber’s)”

“Team shooting% when x-player is screening a goalie (particularly Wayne Simmonds’)”

“Top-speed through the neutral zone (particularly Matt Duchene’s)”

“Overall passing% (particularly Brian Campbell’s)”

Any other microstats you’d love to have access to? 

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Larry Brooks is a cynical guy – breaking news, I know – but his take on analytics, hockey, and the way the media eats them up is pretty great:

Here's a tip for all newly hired general managers: Simply say at your introductory press conference that you believe in analytics, and your hiring will be hailed immediately by the media.

I’m obviously a big fan of hockey analytics and their application to sports writing (not to mention player evaluation etc.). But I roll my eyes a lot reading the way they’re used by some recent converts. That’s fine, people will get better at it, and those writers who know what they’re talking about – Eric Tulsky, Scott Cullen, James Mirtle, Tyler Dellow, etc. – clearly standout from the clumsy efforts of other reporters and writers. 

Which is a lot like general mangers paying lip service to analytics for the praise, and not actually knowing what they’re talking about. That cynicism and disingenuousness will show through. In the immortal words of Dead Prez: “But then if you liar, liar; pants-on-fire; wolf-crier; agent-with-a-wire; I’m a know it when I play it.”

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The World Championships are on and… Frankly they’re really boring, especially so soon after the Olympics. Jason Garrison leads a pretty uninspiring Canadian team in scoring after two games, and yeah, who even cares. 

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If you’re a mother and are reading this – Happy Mother’s day!

If you have a mother,  give her a call and make plans (if your lucky enough to live in the same city), or buy her flowers, or just hug her close and be grateful. It’ll be hard not to feel for Martin St. Louis on Sunday. St. Louis lost his mother France this week, and still played in Game 5 (but he’s been flying back and forth between his hometown and New York all week). St. Louis will play in Game 6 on Sunday, and his extended family will be in attendance which is pretty great. 

Thomas Drance is a news editor at theScore.