The Bruins win, and take a much needed 2 points from John Tortorella's Blue Jackets and return to 2nd place within the knife fight of four teams in the Atlantic Division. Let's review...
Streamables always done by Chris Abraham, Thanks Chris!
1st Period: That zoo really is nice, you guys.
Let's be frank. Last night's game was a defense heavy, boring as hell slog for stretches and all of it's really interesting moments came at the beginning and end.
The Bruins took to a dominant, multi minute offensive zone camping trip to begin the period, throwing whatever they could muster on Joonas Korpisalo. Columbus struggled mightily out of the gate, using transition offense to try and mitigate their problems. Boston didn't allow a shot on goal for several minutes, but when the first one came, CBJ began to claw back in, and got one hell of a break as Alexander Wennberg was interfered with during the course of yet another attempt to break away. This resulted in a Penalty Shot, which is just a shootout goal that counts.
Tuukka Rask hates the shootout, if you can recall. Wennberg completely catches Rask off guard, who was still drifting into his aggressive stance. This would be the best chance CBJ would ever cash in on all night. Five minutes later, the Bruins welcomed back their premiere forward in the best way that they could. Watch him score a goal all by himself to remind you of the good things.
This is the kind of shot I wish every player on the Bruins could do this. It helps Korpisalo kind of sold his house to try and catch that puck.
After this point? Whoo...boy. That's when things got boring
2nd Period: DEFENSE.
SO MUCH DEFENSE. SO MUCH DEFENSE BOTH SQUADS WERE BARELY ABLE TO DO ANYTHING.
This isn't much of a problem, but it makes for a dull watching experience when both sides are kind of struggling to make anything happen against the other. Both clubs knew how to defend each other reasonably well. CBJ would block zone entries on the wing, the Bruins could get multi-man pileups going then fish the puck out of the ensuing mass of humanity. Oh, and they gave up some shots.
They gave up a TON of shots. Not so many that the Bruins were behind much...
...Just enough to REALLY scare you when they got a great, high danger scoring chance. But nobody scares Bruins fans quite like the Bruins themselves, and plowing into your goaltender for the umpteenth thousandth time and he DOESN'T get up is a great way to scare Bruins fans.
Rask was fine, by the way. And that was very important to the outcome of this game.
3rd Period:
What happened in this particular period was that the Bruins did
Yeah. it took a LOOOONG time for the Bruins to get out of "Park the Bus" mode, and I'm not exactly sure they ever left it. This period was like sensory deprivation: inevitably you will start to hallucinate and go crazy.
But hey, for fans of good goaltending, Tuukka Rask was having the time of his life!
The Bruins would then go on to Over time where...
OVERTIME:
...Loui won it in OT on the first shift. Mercifully ending a great defensive battle. The Bruins are back at it on Thursday against the Nashville Predators at 8pm.
Miscellaneous Thoughts:
- THIS GAME WAS SO HARD TO WAAAATCH. But defense wins championships so if they just keep winning ugly like this they'll have no trouble in the postseason.
- David Pastrnak is my favorite player on the Boston Bruins and games like tonight's are why I am so excited for his future as a Boston Bruin. He didn't score or register a point, but he was playing an incredible amount of responsible defense and fearless offense. When you're 19 and "undersized" that's something you can't exactly teach and I'm glad Pasta showed us everything he's capable of short of scoring.
- Say what you will of Tuukka Rask's season so far, Rask was lights out barring the silly shootout nonsense. Plenty of goofy chances and shots went in on him and he stops all but one...and it was WAAAY back in the first. This should be, or at the very least I hope, that this is the bounce back game he needed to get back into fighting form after two ugly starts.
- Krug had a pretty nice game after his possession took an absolute nosedive over the last two. He's still trying to adjust to being the better half of Kevan Miller, and I'm fine with that.
- Adam McQuaid was in the lineup and I barely noticed him. I choose to believe that's a good thing if I don't hear a defenseman's name that often over the course of a game. Same goes to Kevan Miller.
- Brad's point streak ends at 13. I suppose everyone needs a break, especially since he's been one of the more consistent Bruins this year.
- Patrice Bergeron was a goal scorer obviously, so that's lovely. But his presence changes the entirety of the Boston game and for the better. Even when they're playing their worst game where they can't buy a shot on goal, let alone a goal, they can still look to his line to generate SOMETHING going towards the opposing goaltender. Thank god you're back, Patrice. We missed you. Dearly.
So, let's get ready for a slightly later game against Nashville. See you then!
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