B’s point to postseason
Clinch spot in OT loss
ST. LOUIS — The Bruins took care of the formality of qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs last night. And with the kind of season they’ve had and all the injuries they’ve endured, it was only fitting they did it in a game like this one at Scottrade Center.
With no fewer than seven key contributors, including half the defense corps, on the shelf with various injuries, the B’s faced down a desperate, bruising St. Louis Blues team and managed a point in a 2-1 overtime loss.
Newcomer Ryan Donato scored his second goal in as many games, a first period power-play tally on a fortunate bounce, and Anton Khudobin made it hold up until 9:36 of the third period when Jaden Schwartz whistled a wrist shot over the goalie’s blocker arm to tie it. But Khudobin made a spectacular glove save on Dmitrij Jaskin in the final seconds to preserve the one point the B’s needed to nudge into the postseason.
Then Schwartz won it for the Blues 30 seconds into overtime on a wrister from the slot.
The Bruins started the evening with the nightly update to the injury report. Torey Krug, who has been nursing an upper body injury since the Carolina game a week ago, joined Zdeno Chara, Rick Nash, Patrice Bergeron, Charlie McAvoy, David Backes and Jake DeBrusk on the shelf. Krug was termed day-today by the club.
Though Krug has been hot lately, his loss didn’t slow the B’s down in the first period. They held a 9-5 shot advantage and took a 1-0 lead on a fluky powerplay goal. With Robert Bortuzzo in the box for crosschecking, Alex Pietrangelo possessed the puck behind the Blues net and was set to send it down the sheet to kill off some time. But his clearing attempt went off referee Brad Watson and skidded into the high danger area.
It turned out to be a perfect pass for Donato, who stepped into the slow-moving puck and rifled a slap shot past Jake Allen at 10:12.
The Blues, who were missing one of their top players in Vladimir Tarasenko, tried to exert some of their muscle on the B’s with some heavy hits. On the final shift of the period, fourth line winger Nikita Soshnikov crushed Riley Nash along the boards at center ice and then, after the play went back into the Bruins end, he belted Adam McQuaid from behind. Luckily for McQuaid, he was far enough away from the boards that he didn’t hit them when he went down.
A scrum ensued and when the dust settled Nash was sent off along with Soshnikov with less than a second left, setting up a 4-on-4 to start the second.
Nothing came of that extra-ice situation and then the B’s killed off a Jordan Swarz slashing penalty with ease.
The B’s got their second power play when Brayden Schenn was called for charging on David Krejci, catching the center on the noggin and knocking him on his back. It was a big hit, but Krejci got up and was out for his next shift on the power play.
But with 49 seconds left in the advantage, Danton Heinen, who was just robbed by Allen with the glove, was called for holding.
On the Blues’ abbreviated power play, Khudobin had to make a pad save on a bouncing puck that he didn’t see until the last second. Khudobin was solid throughout the second period, when the Blues started to gain control of the play.
St. Louis held a 9-8 shot advantage in the the period and had delivered 27 hits in the first 40 minutes.
They were surely hoping it would pay dividends in the third, and it did.