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Streamables tonight from Chris!
Maybe Zdeno Chara has a long memory, or maybe just felt like playing physical, but he lays out Oskar Sundqvist early in the first.
Believe it or not, David Pastrnak scored again. #88 gets his 11th of the year on the power play to make it 1-0 Bruins.
Anders Bjork fires home a one-timer to make it 2-0 Bruins in the second.
Brandon Carlo would add an empty-netter to give the Bruins a third goal, and Tuukka Rask stood tall down the stretch.
3-0 final. NOT BAD.
Game notes
- Blues fans are definitely not mad online. Any mention of the Bruins doing something well tonight resulted in about 50 responses from extremely not mad Blues fans, sharing GIFs from last year’s Final or other similar content. Definitely not mad at all.
- Rask finished the night with 26 saves, and was probably at his best on the St. Louis power play. The Bruins gave the Blues 4 opportunities with the man advantage, and were definitely hemmed in at times. Still, Rask was big when called upon.
- While there’s plenty to be happy with tonight, the Bruins were, at times, sloppy with the puck. St. Louis looked dangerous when taking advantage of those sloppy plays, but Rask did a good job limiting second and third chances. It’s hard to nitpick a 3-0 win against the defending champion, but there are definitely areas of their game that the B’s need to clean up.
- Nice to see Anders Bjork get on the board. He’s been good since coming up, and it looks like his play away from the puck has improved since last season. His shot was a great one, and he also did a great job finding that soft spot on the ice. I can’t see how you’d take him out of the lineup based on how he’s played since getting called up.
- Oskar Sundqvist got another boarding penalty tonight, this time for hitting Charlie McAvoy from behind. Some things never change.
- Patrice Bergeron has been snakebit in the last few games. Tonight alone, he had two golden chances that he either shot directly at Binnington or hesitated and saw the door close. The same thing happened at least once in the last game. It’s not a huge issue, more a matter of luck. They’ll start going the other way soon.
- Speaking of the Bruins and the penalty kill, there was one St. Louis PP in the second where the puck was in the Bruins zone for somewhere around 1:53 of the PP. The Bruins’ first PK unit didn’t get off the ice until there were about 5 seconds left in the kill. Not ideal, but hey...whatever works!
The B’s are back at it in under 24 hours, as they’ll play the Rangers at MSG. The Celtics just finished beating the Knicks at MSG as I type this. Tacko Fall dunked all over Manhattan. Amen.