If all goes well tonight, the Bruins are a mere 60 minutes of play from a triumphant return to the Stanley Cup Finals.

The first two games of this series were complete embarrassments for the top-seeded Pittsburgh Penguins, as their offense dried up, their goaltending collapsed (as if it were ever fortified to begin with) and the defense crumbled like feta. Game 3 was the sort of game we all expected. An intensely physical grinder that took about ninety minutes to be decided. In all likelihood, we can expect to see the latter tonight. Or Vokoun will fall flat once again, who knows. Luckily, the Bruins devour this sort of inconsistency.

Late season acquisition Kaspars Daugavins will replace Greg Campbell, who suffered a broken right fibula after laying down in front of a one-timer from Evgeni Malkin. In six games for the Bruins this year, Daugavins has one assists. Of the Bruins’ three options for replacing Campbell – Jay Pandolfo and Carl Soderberg being the other two – Daugavins was the best choice.

Had Soderberg joined the Bruins earlier and grown into the system, the massive, one-eyed Swedish scoring machine would have been the obvious choice. But we simply do not have enough of a sample size to determine how his skills would translate into the NHL. If you subscribe to the “Europe has a larger ice surface” theory of why Tyler Seguin has been so disappointing this season, similar reasoning would fit. Though Pandolfo is twice a Stanley Cup champion, the Winchester, Mass., native and Boston University alum is too old and slow at 39 to match a desperate Penguins team facing elimination.

On a side note, is anyone else inordinately uncomfortable whenever a tweet from the Bruins includes “the Daug Man“?

You can catch the game tonight at 8 on the NBC Sports Network and 98.5 The Sports Hub. To pump you up, watch this awesome Game 3 intro Hockey Night in Canada put together. Goosebumps strike right around the Chara hit.