Shawn Thornton gears up for a hit on Matt Cooke. But was it enough? (AP)

This was supposed to be the biggest game in town. The Big Bad Bruins finally were going to turn the corner and start knocking people around again. The “goon” Matt Cooke — who has left Marc Savard in the dark, literally — was going to receive the beating, thrashing and all-out torture of a lifetime. Sidney Crosby was going to have to keep his head on a swivel, because every time he touched the puck, a player with a big gold ‘B’ on his jersey would be keeping him on edge.

All these things sounded great, right? Well all the talk, all the speculation, all the Tom, Dick and Harrys chiming in on what was going to happen finally came to fruition last night … and the Bruins disappointed everyone.

Yes, Shawn Thornton gave Mr. Cooke a nice beatdown — even after the referees stepped in — but after that fight in the opening minutes, the Bruins played uninspired hockey in their 3-0 loss to the Penguins. Heck, they made Georgetown look good.

All the fighting, all the hoopla, all the outrage couldn’t put a puck in the net, and the Bruins simply put up a clunker.

This isn’t the first time a Boston team has come up small when the stakes were large. Yes, the local teams have had great success over the past decade, and we are not trying to take away from that or say that the teams never come up big when it counts.

But here are a few recent cases where the hype machine was kicked way up for a game and the local boys flatlined in the heat of the moment.

PATRIOTS VS. RAVENS, 2010

Ray Rice sealed the win on the first play of the day. (AP)

Once Tom Brady and the Pats got into the playoffs, everything was going to be fine. Once they smelled the January air, placed the playoffs patch on their jerseys and readied themselves for a championship run, everything was going to be fine, right?

Well, no, actually, not right. Not even close. On the first play from scrimmage, Ray Rice took it to the house for an 83-yard touchdown and the game was over after the first quarter.

The Patriots were playing up-and-down football all season long but showed enough glimpses that everything was going to be all right heading into the wild card showdown with the Ravens. Baltimore didn’t have enough offense to hang with the Pats. The Ravens defense was long in the tooth. Brady would pick the secondary apart, even without Wes Welker, because Randy Moss and Julian Edelman would pick up the slack.

No, no and no. The Ravens didn’t need to be flashy or unpredictable because they ran the ball with ease against the Pats defense, rushing for 234 yards. Joe Flacco threw 10 passes … 10 passes for 34 yards.

And it’s not like the offense helped out at all. Brady threw three picks. Moss was uninspired, and the only two players who actually showed up to play were Kevin Faulk and Edelman.

Very similar to:

PATRIOTS VS. SAINTS, 2009

Bill Belichick knew Drew Brees and the Saints go the better of the Pats on Monday Night Football. (AP)

We didn’t mean to pile on the 2009-10 Patriots, but this game was a dud as well. Two of the best offenses in the league, two of the top quarterbacks going head-to-head, and a possible Super Bowl preview.

Well, at least that was true for one team. The Saints destroyed the Patriots 38-17 on Monday Night Football in the Superdome, a place where the Pats won their first championship.

Drew Brees scorched the defense for five touchdowns and made the secondary look foolish all night. The Patriots were moving the ball fairly well against the Saints defense in the early going. Lawrence Maroney and the rest of the ground attack were finding holes, but when Brees started lighting up the defense, the Patriots had to resort back to the pass-first offense, and it wasn’t pretty.

Brady was picked twice on the night and Brian Hoyer finished out the game behind center. When was the last time Brady didn’t finish out a loss for the Patriots? He’s usually out there fighting to the bitter end, but this one was so lopsided that Bill Belichick gave him some time off.

It was an ugly night all around, and maybe a win that helped give the Saints the confidence to go on their Super Bowl run.

CELTICS VS. MAGIC, 2009

The Celtics didn’t need Kevin Garnett, as they had Glen “Big Baby” Davis knocking down a game-winner in the second round of the playoffs vs. the Magic in 2009.

After that dramatic win, Boston would win Game 5 and have two shots to knock out the Magic and set up another meeting with LeBron James’ Cavaliers, but that never happened. The C’s only put up 75 points in Game 6 and saved their best clunker for last with a 101-82 demoralizing loss at TD Garden.

The Celtics probably had no business being in the game anyway. Without Garnett, they barely hung on against Chicago in the first round and were somehow hanging tough with a taller, lengthier Magic team.

With Garnett and Leon Powe MIA, Davis, Mikki Moore and Brian Scalabrine had to pick up the slack. That doesn’t scream championship contender at you. But the Game 7 loss stung, because it was the first time the Celtics had lost a series after being up 3-2.

Hedo Turkoglu led the way and Dwight Howard just had to be, well, Dwight Howard. Howard dominated the boards and took it to a banged-up, tired front line for the Green. All the good vibes of the Davis buzzer-beater were gone and so was the season.

RED SOX VS. YANKS — AUGUST FOUR-GAME SWEEP, 2009

Clutch hits were few and far between for David Ortiz and the Red Sox against the Yankees in August and September. (AP)

To say the Red Sox were riding high against their rivals was an understatement in 2009. Boston was 8-0 against the Yankees going into the August four-game series in the “new” Yankee Stadium, basically a little league park. But the Red Sox forgot to bring the lumber.

It all started with the beginning of the end of the John Smoltz experiment in Game 1. Smoltz gave up eight runs in just over three innings of work, and everyone could use the eye test to see that the old guy just had nothing left in the tank for the Red Sox. He could have survived in another division, which he did with St. Louis, but the patient AL East would eat him alive night in and night out.

So, basically you go down a starter for the rest of the season after Game 1, and then the offense musters two runs over the next three games. Two really good performances by Josh Beckett and Clay Buchholz were wasted, and the offense scattered 17 hits over the last three contests.

But no worries, because the Sox still owned a comfortable lead over the Yankees in the head-to-head matchup, and if it came down to a tiebreaker the Sox would hold the advantage in the AL East.

Well, not so much. The Red Sox only won one more game against the Yankees that season, and when a lot of fans wanted the Sox to make a run at the division, Terry Francona and Co., shut it down for the final three games in New York.

That line of thinking didn’t work out too well, as the Sox lost to the Angels in the ALDS and the Yankees went on to win the World Series. Oops.

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