The Bruins fell to 1-2 on the season today as they were stifled by the Colorado Avalanche and Semyon Varlamov 1-0. The B’s seemed to lack energy in the matinee game, but the Avs didn’t appear to have much in the tank, either.
Varlamov made 30 saves in the game for his first win and first shutout of the year. He made a nice glove save on Brad Marchand in the first period and a stretching left pad on Marchand in the second. He robbed Milan Lucic with his blocker on a left-to-right move after Lucic took a nice pass from Nathan Horton. Jack Edwards called it a "Tim Thomas-esque save."
The Avs took the lead with 12:03 left in the third period. Jan Hejda at the left point fed the ageless Milan Hejduk down the boards at the left hashmark and the Bruins, particularly Johnny Boychuk and David Krejci, let Hejduk curl to the faceoff circle and shoot. The puck found a way through a butterflying Tuukka Rask, getting his first start of the season.
The Bruins showed a little more intensity in the last twelve minutes, with their best chances to tie coming on Lucic’s shot and a deflection that hopped past Benoit Pouliot with an open net. Rich Peverley also had the puck skip past him in the final minute when Zdeno Chara found him alone in front of the net.
Rask looked pretty good in net today, making 35 saves. Sadly it looks like the offense is continuing the trend of giving Rask no support on the scoreboard.
I think this may be our first example of a team having a little extra motivation against the Bruins. Colorado didn’t look amazing, but it was clear they were more into it than the B’s were. Hopefully that won’t be an issue this year, but it’s something that Claude is definitely going to have to keep an eye on.
The Bruins will look to get back to .500 on Wednesday night when they travel down to Raleigh to play the Carolina Hurricanes in the first road game of the year. Versus will televise the game.