B’s put in more overtime
Marchand’s winner caps nice weekend
The Bruins, for all their late-game problems and blown leads, entered Sunday with a pretty good track record in one-goal games.
At 13-4-8, it was a lot better than the Avalanche’s abysmal 4-6-10. Colorado’s 1-10 overtime record wasn’t much better.
The Bruins made sure to extend those struggles, as Brad Marchand scored with 56 seconds left in overtime to give them a 2-1 win. It was the B’s second OT victory of the weekend.
Marchand’s shot banked off Matt Calvert’s skate in front of the Colorado goal and found the back of the net.
Colorado has lost its past seven games, and 21 of its past 26, including just three victories since the start of the new year.
The Bruins went to overtime for the fifth time in their past seven games, including their third straight after beating the Kings in overtime on Saturday and falling to the Rangers in a shootout on Wednesday.
The B’s earned a power play near the end of the first, but it was negated by a Torey Krug hooking call. With his penalty barely expired, Avalanche leading scorer Nathan MacKinnon dodged around the Bruins defense to get underneath the right circle and lifted the puck over Jaroslav Halak for a 1-0 lead with just 32 seconds remaining.
John Moore fired in his third goal of the season from just underneath the blue line to tie the game at 1-1 with 16:20 to go in the second.
The Avalanche took issue with a hit Charlie McAvoy made against fellow Boston University product Matt Nieto in the second period 23 seconds before Moore’s goal. The physical intensity changed from that point forward.
The B’s failed to convert a 5-on-3 power play in the second following an interference call on Colorado’s Carl Soderberg. MacKinnon had a chance on a breakaway out of the penalty box. He got behind the Bruins defenders when Tory Krug’s pass slipped out of the offensive zone. Halak stymied MacKinnon to keep the game knotted up.
Moore appeared to score one of the strangest goals of the season at the end of the second. He tried to slap the puck into the offensive zone from the red line, and it deflected off the curved glass at the end of the Bruins bench, finding its way past goalie Semyon Varlamov.
It would have been Moore’s second tally of the game, but the officials waved it off.
Sheldon Ories was sent off for holding with 2:15 left in the third period to give the Bruins a power play. They didn’t score, sending it to the extra frame.
After a stalling overtime period in which neither team did much of anything, the Bruins won a faceoff with about a minute left, and Marchand wristed home the winner.
Despite drawing five penalties, the Bruins power play struggled. Colorado also was scoreless with the man-advantage, going 0-for-4.
The Bruins finish up their homestand against the Blackhawks on Tuesday before heading out west for a five-game road trip.