Sens bottle up B’s again
Shootout loss ends run at six
In their fourth try against the Ottawa Senators this season, the Bruins managed to get their one and only point of the year off their Atlantic Divisions rivals last night at the Garden.
It was most definitely not a feel-good point.
The Bruins started the night without Brad Marchand, who sat out the first of his two-game suspension, and then lost Torey Krug in the first period to a lower body injury. He did not return, which is not a good sign. With the playoffs starting next week, interim coach Bruce Cassidy did not have any idea on how long Krug, the B’s best puck-moving defenseman, will be out.
With those two gone, the Senators, who were badly weakened themselves without Erik Karlsson, Marc Methot, Bobby Ryan and Zack Smith, slowed the B’s attack to a halt in the second and third periods, and survived in a shootout, taking the 2-1 decision.
Kyle Turris was the only goalscorer in the skills competition, beating Tuukka Rask through the pads while Craig Anderson stopped Drew Stafford, Ryan Spooner and David Pastrnak to grab the win that had to feel awfully gratifying to the Senators, no matter how ugly it was. And it clinched a playoff spot for Ottawa.
“That’s their game. They do a good job of shutting down the neutral zone,” said B’s defenseman Kevan Miller, whose team had its sixgame win streak snapped. “In the first period we did a pretty good job getting through that, but in the second and third, they had five guys by the puck the whole time, so it was tough to get through. I think we did a good job, we deserved better, but it’s a tough one.”
With the victory, the Sens moved one point ahead of the B’s into second place in the division while the B’s nudged two points ahead of the Maple Leafs, losers to Tampa Bay last night. If the B’s can beat the Washington Capitals tomorrow, no easy feat, even if the Presidents’ Trophy winners rest some of their stars, it would guarantee at least third place in the Atlantic and thus avoid a first-round matchup with the Caps.
But right now, a sevengame series against the trapping Sens doesn’t look that great, either, for the eyes or the B’s chances. In the four games this season, the B’s scored a grand total of six goals and managed just one measly evenstrength tally.
It doesn’t sound promising, but the Bruins claimed they’re not daunted at the prospect of facing the Sens.
“Our record of 0-4 doesn’t really tell the real story,” said center David Krejci. “Other than the first game in their building, I think we could have gotten at least two games, for sure, especially at home. So if it happens that we play them, I feel confident in this team that we can get the job done. But we have a game to play (tomorrow against Washington) and next week is next week.”
As tough as it is to penetrate the Sens’ 1-3-1 system, just getting through it doesn’t guarantee success, either. Anderson has been terrific this year. He was again last night, especially in the first period when the Bruins were getting clean looks.
Stafford gave the B’s the lead at 10:37 of the first on a power-play wraparound, and they looked poise to take control. Just how much they missed Marchand is hard to quantify, but his replacement in the lineup, Frank Vatrano (back in after missing four games with an upper body injury) had two grade A scoring chances, one off a beautiful set-up from David Backes and another off an end boards carom.
Anderson stoned him, and he would later turn away a clean breakaway from Pastrnak in the second period.
“Obviously there were a couple of chances I would have liked to bear down on in the first,” said Vatrano, now on a 15-game goal-less streak.
The Bruins fired 15 shots on Anderson in the first, but just a total of 10 in the second and third. And when Alex Burrows beat Rask on a blast from the blue line at 7:37 of the second, the teams were in for the long grind.
And that played right into the Sens’ hands.
“I thought we had a good first period. We were getting by them pretty easily,” Krejci said. “Then things happened and that’s it.”
Something always seems to happen against the Senators. And for the Bruins, none of it has been good.