Bruins let Jaroslav Halak win them a game 1-0

First Period:

As the game began, it became clear that the Coyotes came to play, making life infinitely difficult for Boston to create any consistent pressure, and Boston wasn’t terribly concerned with trying to create any.

Thankfully, after a strong couple of shifts, the first line would hit the ice very late in the period for Brad Marchand to put a shot with eyes on it right past Darcy Kuemper to give the game it’s sole goal. 1-0 Bruins!

Bergeron’s first assist of the season couldn’t have come at a better time. Great work by Pastrnak to keep the lane open for Marchy.

And with that, we head to...the rest of the game!

Second and Third Period:

Honestly? Other than a boatload of bad penalties, lucky breaks, and fantastic goaltending? Not much. The entire game was the Bruins just rebuffing a furious Coyotes forecheck and they managed to hang on to collect 2 points. Can’t ask for much after that, really.

Game Notes:

• What is there that needs to be said about Jaroslav Halak’s game? He shut out a desperate Coyotes squad, made crazy save after crazy save, and was the Bruins best player tonight. Full five star performance from the pride of Bratislava. Darcy Kuemper also had a pretty solid night, all things considered.
• Let’s not beat around the bush: Boston got a good portion of this game handed back to them by Arizona. It was a rare night where the B’s, who are usually pretty dang good at 5-on-5, got pantsed across the lineup. A good portion of the depth needs to pick it up and play like they did for game one. Vegas currently isn’t a team that you should be sleeping on for any reason, and stands to be a much more dangerous test.
• Officiating was bizarre for this game. It swung between perfectly fine and perfectly braindead depending on the call, but neither squad was terribly interested in cashing in so for right now it worked out.
• Seems like Bruce has been pretty interested in spreading ice-time around to keep Zdeno Chara from breaking. The difference between each defender’s total 5-on-5 TOI was within a minute of each player. The only outliers were McAvoy who had almost a minute more than the next player, and Clifton, who had at least a minute or two less.
• 2-on-1’s happened a lot to the Krugarlo pairing, whether by fault of the Bruins or by intentional plays by the Coyotes, and one has to give both players props for severely limiting opportunities for Arizona to get to Halak when they managed to be pulled into such dangerous moments that could’ve really screwed things up.
• After a quiet game one, the first line was doing a lot better; creating trouble in front of Kuemper, netting the only goal scored all game, and collectively shot 9 of Boston’s 26 shots, tying for team lead. Only Brad would cash in, and there were still some obvious rust and sync issues, but it’s a big step up for the team.

A sleep or two, then Boston plays the Vegas Golden Knights on their home turf on Tuesday at 10pm.

We’ll see you then!