Bruins shut down by Habs
After beating the Canadiens in their previous six meetings, the Bruins streak of dominance was snapped. Montreal scored a pair of goals halfway through the first period and didn’t look back last night, handing the Bruins their first loss at home this season, 3-0. “You can’t chase the game all the time,” said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy. “It’s OK to be down one. When you get down two, it gives the other team a lot of juice.” The Canadiens hadn’t defeated the Bruins since Nov. 8, 2016, and hadn’t shut them out since 2014. It was the first time the Bruins were shut out since their opening night loss in Washington, and the loss ended their two-game win streak. Early goals plagued the Bruins once again. It was the sixth time this season the B ‘s allowed a goal within the first 11 minutes of the contest. Five have also come within two minutes of allowing a goal previously. Brendan Gallagher beat Tuukka Rask short-side at the bottom of the right circle for the 1-0 advantage with 10:42 to go in the first frame. The Habs winger deked Noel Acciari and shot it behind Matt Grzelcyk to find twine. “This day and age, if you’re not sealing completely, it’s going to go through,” said Rask. “Unfortunately (the first goal) went through. It’s my bad. It took us a few minutes to get going again. I have to make that save.” Just over a minute later, the Canadiens struck again. Max Domi picked up his own rebound while falling to the ice and wristed it past Rask, well out of his crease, to double the lead at the 9:21 mark. It was his team-leading 11th point of the season, and his fifth goal. Ryan Donato looked to have made a dent in the Canadiens lead with a wrist shot at the side of the left circle over Carey Price’s blocker, but it was called back with an offsides call. Anders Bjork was barely ahead of the blue line at the 7:45 mark of the middle frame, and a short replay via a Montreal coach’s challenge kept the Canadiens ahead of the B’s by two. “You never really want to be negative after you score right away, you kind of just want to enjoy it,” said Donato. “But coming by the bench, I heard someone saying offsides and though, ‘Oh no, could it be really?’ ” After that, the Bruins struggled to test Price with many challenging shots on net. The Canadiens notched an empty netter with 28 seconds left when Jordie Benn banked the puck off the boards on the opposite end and it slid in. Donato drew a tripping call less than seven minutes into the third period, but it was negated early by a tripping penalty against Rask. “I didn’t try to intentionally whack him or anything,” said Rask. “I was just trying to extend time for me to get back to the net.” Said Cassidy: “Two goals shouldn’t beat you at home, we have the ability to score. But it did tonight, and that’s a credit to their goaltender.”