Tag: Boston Bruins

Given the streaky nature of these Bruins, you might be forgiven if you didn’t want to fully invest in this team.

But if the B’s can continue to get goaltending like they’ve gotten the last couple of games, they might be worth a watch.

After surviving a six-game losing streak last month, the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction. And on Tuesday night, they cooled off one of the hottest teams in the league, shutting out the Detroit Red Wings, 3-0, while riding a dominant third period to the win. Jeremy Swayman (24 saves) notched the B’s second straight clean sheet after Joonas Korpisalo blanked the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday.

“Our goalies have been tremendous, pretty much all year. They’ve been steady for us. We’re just trying to limit the high-danger stuff and know they’ve got everything coming from the  outside,” said Fraser Minten, who scored a big insurance goal in the third period.

The B’s have now won four straight and six of their last seven to put themselves back in the Eastern Conference playoff picture. They’ve also remained on their best behavior. After giving the Kraken four penalties (and three power-play goals) in their last loss in Seattle, they’ve given their opponents only two a game in this four-game win streak.

“I think we’ve done a good job of being resilient all year with that, turning it around when things go south. We’ve got to avoid those negative streaks and keep it going like this more often,” said Minten.

The B’s went into the third clinging to a 1-0 lead, but outshot the Wings 16-2 in the third and pulled away with two more goals. The B’s now have a chance to sweep their five-game homestand with a win over Seattle on Thursday after Zdeno Chara raises his No. 33 to the rafters.

Keeping their foot on the gas pedal in the third is not something the B’s had done much early in the season, leaving points on the table on a number of occasions.

“It’s a learning process and we had to go through some third periods, we had to learn from it,” said coach Marco Sturm, who called the win one of the most complete 5-on-5 games of the year. “But I think since a week or so, our 5-on-5 game’s been very consistent with the way we track now and don’t give up outnumbered rushes. I think that frustrates a lot of teams, too. Now we’re actually nice and calm, too, in the third period. Again, we’re still learning. I think we know our identity now but just to close games like that, I think that’s another big step.”

The first period was scoreless but entertaining. The Atlantic Division-leading Wings, who’d won four straight and were 7-2-1 in their previous 10, had played on Monday, beating the Hurricanes in overtime. And the B’s jumped on them early, controlling play in the early stages of the first period.

Pavel Zacha had a pair of Grade A chances, one a clean one-timer from low in right circle that Cam Talbot stopped and another time when he walked down the slot but his backhander would not go.

Detroit eventually got its legs under them and pushed back. The Wings are an impressive team when they’re operating in the offensive zone. It’s especially true when they’re on the power play, and they got one when Elias Lindholm was called for a neutral zone tripping.

Swayman came up with a couple of huge saves. The first one came on Andrew Copp at the side of the net and then Patrick Kane sent J.T. Compher in alone, but Swayman snapped his offering out of the air with his glove.

The B’s, who held a 13-10 shot advantage in the first, got their first power-play chance early in the second period. But while they had good zone time, they could not solve Talbot.

Morgan Geekie, who had welcomed a baby boy named Max on Saturday with his wife Emma, was playing with that energy that often comes to players who’ve just had children born. But he had the same buzzard luck that he brought with him into the game on a nine-game goal-less skid. Midway through the period, he had a great chance when he broke in alone on the right wing, cut across the top of the crease and made a nifty move to pull if back to his forehand but Talbot made a great glove save.

But at 10:59 of the second, the B’s finally broke the ice. Zacha came out of the corner with the puck and wheeled into the high slot before the puck was knocked off his stick. But Mason Lohrei made a heady play to keep the play alive and sweep it back to Zacha. The all-purpose forward then beat Talbot with a high wrist shot from the inside of the right circle to make it 1-0 with his 14th of the year.

They took that slim lead into the third period. But there was zero panic in their game in the final period.

The B’s doubled it at 3:49 of the third.  Sturm briefly flipped centers Lindholm and Minten, putting the rookie up with David Pastrnak and it paid off.

Circling the top of the zone, Pastrnak dropped it for Charlie McAvoy near the blue line and the defenseman took a shot from the high slot that was stopped. He followed up, grabbed his own rebound and dished to Minten for his 11th of the year.

With Talbot pulled for the extra skater with 4:07 left, the B’s won the faceoff and Mark Kastelic chased down the lob-out, sweeping his seventh goal of the year into the empty net.

After a decade and a half of the Bruins feasting on the Buffalo Sabres, the roles look like are now at long last reversed.

That’s certainly the way it looked on Saturday night in Buffalo, where the Bruins saw their losing streak reach five games (0-4-1) after they were dominated for long stretches of the game by the Sabres and lost 4-1.

The Sabres, who have now won eight in a row, jumped over the sinking, cement-shoed Bruins in the Atlantic Division standings by a point.

The game turned in the second period when the Sabres scored three goals and the B’s mustered just two shots on net.

The loss kicked off the five-game road trip that could very well put the B’s playoff hopes in jeopardy already if they can’t snap out of this malaise.

After the three-day Christmas break, the B’s arrived for this one without the benefit of a morning skate, which had to be a scrapped after they were delayed by weather coming out of Boston.

But that excuse went out the window with a decent opening period.

The B’s played a decent opening 20 minutes and came away with a 1-0 lead and it came from a welcome source – David Pastrnak. Elias Lindholm’s forecheck caused Bowen Byram to make a bad pass that Morgan Geekie picked off along the boards. Geekie made a quick backhand pass to Pastrnak, who did not play well in the B’s loss to Montreal before the break, and the sniper beat Ukka-Pekka Lukkonen with his 15th goal of the season at 11:56.

The B’s nearly took a two-goal lead shortly after that when Marat Khusnutdinov, out high in the zone, made a great pass to an open Sean Kuraly, who hit the crossbar.

Another good sign was that goalie Joonas Korpisalo at least appeared to be on his game. The Sabres outshot the B’s 13-9 in the first and there were some high danger chances in that baker’s dozen, but Korpisalo – pulled from his last start against Ottawa and carrying a sub-.900 save percentage most of the season – kept the Sabres off the board for the first 20 minutes.

But the second period was disastrous when the Sabres scored three times before the B’s even registered a shot.

The lead didn’t last long into the second, and just 3:12 into the second period the B’s were looking at a deficit.

It started with what looked like a promising play for the Bruins. Elias Lindholm sent a stretch pass for Geekie that went all the way to end boards and bounced out to Geekie. He elected not to shoot and take it around the net, but he turned it over and the B’s opportunity turned into a Sabre rush. From the right circle, Ryan McLeod beat Korpisalo to the far blocker side with a shot that may have deflected of Andrew Peeke’s stick at 1:39.

Buffalo took the lead just 93 seconds later. Alex Steeves turned the puck over on a breakout attempt. Tage Thompson’s long distance was deflected home by Peyton Krebs and the B’s were once again on the chase.

Then, when Mattias Samuelsson’s seeing-eye shot found its way behind Korpisalo at 7:54, the B’s found themselves in a two-goal hole.

What else could go wrong? Well, the B’s hadn’t taken any penalties and Viktor Arvidsson rectified that situation with 1:33 left in the period when his stick rode up and clipped Samuelsson for a double minor.

The B’s got to the horn without giving up another one. But it was an ugly 20 minutes. They were outshot 11-2 and they were looking at another 2:27 of penalty kill time to start the third.

They killed off the rest of it at the start of the third but they still had a long way to climb out off their hole.

The B’s had one last chance to get in the game with a late power play but they could not get another past Luukkonen. Josh Norris ended it with an empty-netter.

What the Bruins hoped would be a hay-making homestand is producing more uncomfortable questions than points.

After beating the Utah Mammoth to start the five-game residency, the B’s lost to the Edmonton Oilers, squandered a winnable game in a shootout to the Vancouver Canucks and, on Sunday night, took a thorough beating at the hands of the Ottawa Senators, 6-2, at the Garden.

In many critical junctures of the game, the B’s found themselves outworked by the Sens and, though Ottawa may yet turn out to be the class of Atlantic Division, that should not be happening.

Their penalty kill, good at the start of the season, has fallen on very hard times recently. The PK allowed two more power-play goals on Sunday, the seventh straight game they’ve allowed a PP goal. The B’s also seem to be in search of the right combination for the top line. Sunday’s iteration – David Pastrnak-Pavel Zacha-Casey Mittelstadt – finished minus-2 and were outplayed by the Sens’ big guns.

Mason Lohrei, Hampus Lindholm, Victor Soderstrom and Andrew Peeke all finished minus-2 as well.

“They scored a lot of goals in front of the net and that’s something we work on, take a lot of pride in,” said Charlie McAvoy. “If you’re going to be a good defensive team in this league you’ve got to take pride in it. We just know better, as a group, what we have to do and how we have to play to win in this league. Any team in this league, if you’re getting beat to your net front, you’re not going to have success. You’re going to give up a lot of goals and that’s what we did tonight.”

They have one game to get right against their archrival Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday at the Garden before the three-day Christmas break. After that, the B’s will play five straight on the road, where they’re 8-9. As tight as the Eastern Conference standings are, one lengthy slump could put this team down too deep a hole. December is awfully early to label any game a must-win, but Tuesday’s tilt against the Habs feels awfully close to that.

All of a sudden, the B’s find themselves in a precarious spot.

“We need to win that game,” said Nikita Zadorov. “We’re out of a playoff spot. That’s not where we want to be. It’s really tight in the standings but we know where we’re at. It’s nowhere near how we want to play as well, so we have to show up for a big rivalry game.”

Sunday’s game was never really close.

Prior to the game, Marco Sturm called the Senators one of the best teams in the league. Then the B’s went out and made them look like the ‘85 Oilers in the first period as the Sens raced out to 3-0 lead.

It was clear the B’s were going to have trouble with the Sens – and the puck – in the early going as Ottawa immediately began creating scoring chances. It took just 1:30 for one to find the back of the net. Off a rush, Nick Jensen dropped the puck for Drake Batherson, who beat Joonas Korpisalo to the glove side on a mid-slot shot.

The B’s were lucky to keep it a one-goal deficit for as long as they did. Korpisalo stopped Tim Stutzle on one shorthanded breakaway early on the period and another one late. But at 13:44, the Sens dominated the slot and, on their third try, doubled their lead. In the low slot, Batherson was able to kick a loose puck over to Claude Giroux at the right side of the net and the veteran was able to score shortside.

When Fabian Zetterlund was able to beat Korpisalo 3:03 later on a bad-angle shot on the power play – marking the seventh straight game the B’s have allowed a man-advantage goal – this one was looking like a lost cause.

But the Sens did what they could to give the B’s some life before the period was out. Stutzle and Artem Zub took penalties 24 seconds apart, giving the B’s a lengthy 5-on-3. Pastrnak beat old friend Linus Ullmark from the left circle for his 14th of the year at 19:07. They would start the second period still with 40 seconds left on the Zub penalty.

They could not cash in on the rest of the PP, but they put on some good pressure in the first few minutes of the period. They had a great chance to get to within a goal on a backdoor play but the puck bounced over his stick.

Soon, it would become evident that the signs of life were a mirage.

The Senators scored two goals in 19 seconds to put the game back on the blowout track. They earned the first one, outworking the Bruins’ third pairing of Lohrei and Soderstrom and anyone else who was close to the net. Finally, Zacha could not tie up Stutzle’s stick at the side of the crease and he beat Korpisalo from in tight.

Then on the next shift, Dylan Cozens’ shot from the blue line eluded Korpisalo and that was it for the B’s backup netminder for the night. Jeremy Swayman, who had played his fourth straight game in the shootout loss to Vancouver on Saturday, was pressed back into action.

“It’s disappointing,” said Sturm of his team getting outworked. “It was right from the start … they came out flying,  they came out skating. They outworked us right away from the first puck drop and they finished us right away in the paint. And we almost didn’t do anything about it. Yeah, that was a disappointing night for us from the first to the last minute from almost everyone in the room. I think (Tanner) Jeannot and (Mark Kastelic), they tried at least to do everything they could to get the guys going. But other than that, it was a tough one.”

Later in the period, Jeannot locked up with fellow heavyweight Kurtis MacDermid but before any blows were landed, MacDermid lost his footing.

The B’s did get one back, as McAvoy’s first of the year that broke through a crowd at 14:36, but the Sens answered right back with another Zetterlund power-play goal.

There was bad blood throughout this one and it spilled over in the third. Kastelic and MacDermid had a throw-down in the third period, with Kastelic earning the hard decision. Zadorov went after Dylan Cozens after Cozens kneed him. And after Brady Tkachuk was yapping at Pastrnak from the Sens’ bench during a timeout with 1:01 left, Jensen dumped Pastrnak off the faceoff and then Ridley Greig started throwing punches at the Bruin star before Pastrnak got up and landed a couple of his own.

Perhaps the Sens took their liberties because it was the end of the season series and were feeling good about themselves. They had a right, going 3-0-1 in the series. But it looked and felt pretty cheap.

Maybe that’s what it will take to snap the B’s back to attention. We shall see.

The Bruins did a reasonably good job of shutting down Connor McDavid at 5-on-5 on Thursday night at the Garden, but they learned the hard way that the Oilers captain can beat you in many ways.

McDavid had a primary assist on a power-play goal and scored a vintage he-makes-it-look-easy shorthanded goal to lead the Oilers to a 3-1 victory over the B’s.

“Five-on-five, I think we did a god job. We defended really well, didn’t give them too many chances,” said defenseman Andrew Peeke. “Special teams, they got one on the power play and then the shorthanded goal. Sometimes special teams can win a game that way.”

Meanwhile, the B’s could get very little going at 5-on-5 as they dropped the second contest in a five-game homestand.

Trying to shut down the likes of McDavid and Leon Draisaitl can have a way of limiting your own offensive game as well.

“We knew what their strength is offensively and it was a little bit in the back of our mind that they can beat you one-on-one so you stay a little bit back,” said Pavel Zacha, whose line was tasked with defending the McDavid line. “That’s something we talked about before the game, too, not to be too passive. Especially in the second period, we stayed more passive than we would have liked and we’re going to see that on the video, too. When we had chances to be more aggressive, win some puck battles and that kind of got them in the game.”

Added coach Marco Sturm: “I think we showed them a little too much respect.”

For the fifth game in a row, the Bruins allowed the first goal of the game. Up until that point, they had done a good job of bottling up McDavid, Draisaitl and company either in the neutral zone or just inside the blue line.

But when Mark Kastelic was called for tripping old friend Trent Frederic, the Oilers’ top-ranked power play went to work. Frederic, who was given a nice hand from the crowd when his obligatory welcome-back video was played, very well may have tripped on a fellow Oiler.

Nonetheless, it didn’t take long for Edmonton to cash in. McDavid took a Draisaitl feed at the side of the net and he calmly waited for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to sneak behind Sean Kuraly at the opposite post. McDavid hit him for a perfect redirect goal for the 1-0 Edmonton lead at 13:38 of the first period.

But the Bruins’ power play isn’t bad, either, and it got them back to even at 16:27 of the first on a nice give-and-go. With Darnell Nurse in the box for tripping Marat Khusnutdinov, Elias Lindholm gained the blue line after taking a neutral zone feed from Zacha and sifted a return pass to Zacha for a clean break-in. Zacha beat Tristan Jarry with a pretty backhander for his ninth goal of the season.

The B’s tempted fate when they took another penalty at the start of the second period – an Peeke high stick on McDavid – but this time they were able to kill it.

Much of the second period was low-event hockey as the B’s continued to do a good job of limiting the big guns’ chances.

But a pair of Edmonton fourth-liners combined to put the Oilers back on top, and against the B’s top line and defense pair no less. Former short-time Bruin Max Jones came out of the corner with the puck and got a shot off that that handcuffed Jeremy Swayman. The rebound went into the danger area where Quinn Hutson – of the Boston University Hutsons – pounced on it and tucked it behind Swayman for his first NHL goal and point. While McDavid flashed his brilliance in the game, that fourth line goal stood up as the GWG.

At the other end, the Oilers were forced to make a goalie change when Jarry appeared to injure himself reaching for a wide shot. In went Calvin Pickard and the B’s tested him a couple of times, but they faced a one-goal deficit heading into the third. Pickard would not be beaten the rest of the way.

The B’s were given a great chance when they got their second power play 30 seconds into the third. But while McDavid couldn’t get loose at 5-on-5, he did so on the penalty kill to drive a dagger of a shorthanded goal into the B’s hearts.

After Pickard was able to just get his glove on a fluttering puck, Nugent-Hopkins gave McDavid the puck and Oiler captain had some giddyup going. He blew past Charlie McAvoy and then beat Swayman with a backhander to make it 3-1 at 1:41 of the third.

The B’s had one last chance to make it a game when Vasily Podkolzin was called for slashing with 5:31 remaining, but the B’s could not pull any closer.

For Sturm, the game serves as an educational tool for his still growing hockey team.

“I like playing teams like that, because they make you better,” said Sturm. “That one mistake (on the Hutson goal), it will make us better, trust me. And that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, we have to learn the hard way but there’s other moments in game, too. For me, it’s a great teaching game.”