B’s suffocate Rangers
Coyle scores again in back-to-back
NEW YORK — The Tampa Bay Lightning are the hottest team in the NHL and they may yet overtake the Bruins in this suddenly hotly contested Atlantic Division race.
But the B’s are not just going to hand over their hard-earned first place position, that much is clear.
With the Rangers desperate for any and every point to keep their dwindling playoff hopes alive, the B’s scored one goal in each period and used their tightchecking game to suffocate the Blueshirts for a 3-1 win at Madison Square Garden on
Sunday, pushing their lead over Tampa back to three points. It was the B’s ninth win in 10 games and it snapped a four-game Ranger win streak.
Charlie McAvoy, Charlie Coyle and Patrice Bergeron scored for the B’s and Jaroslav Halak made 25 saves in his first game since Feb. 5. There was a little bit of nastiness in this one, and the B’s had to stiffen their backs late in the contest, but they never trailed and never lost control.
It was indicative of how they’ve been playing during this latest stretch of success, with more attention to detail in their checking game and simply more meat to their game all around. In the second period, they killed off a four-minute Ranger power play early in the second period and Coyle later scored a short-handed goal to grab this game by the throat.
“It was good again,” said coach Bruce Cassidy of his team’s checking game. “The PK again was outstanding and we seemed to be on it half the night. That taxes your team a little bit but we did a good job with our clears and had fresh legs out there. On a back-to-back, you want to stay in the game early on, stay on your toes as much as possible. I thought in the first period we were very good. They had their push, obviously. In the past we had broken down in those cases earlier in the year. (Sunday) I thought we weathered it well. We got the save from Jaro in the slot (on Phillip Di Guiseppe) and from there I thought we were pretty good.”
The Bruins had an edge in play in a choppy first period, outshooting the the Blueshirts 11-9 and enjoying an even better advantage in quality scoring chances.
They scored the first goal of the game on a fortunate bounce. Charlie McAvoy sent a pass toward Chris Wagner in the slot and it took a crazy carom into the net. Though the goal was originally credited to Wagner, it actually went off a Ranger stick blade and popped in the air, traveling past Wagner’s head. Goalie Alexander Georgiev made a Bad News Bears attempt to catch it, failed badly and it dropped behind him with 47.1 seconds left in the period. It stood up as McAvoy’s goal, his third in six games after he went the first 54 games of the season without a goal.
“They don’t ask how …” said McAvoy with a wide grin.
The B’s slim lead was jeopardized early in the second when David Krejci tried to backhand a puck toward the net but whiffed and nailed former Bruin farmhand Ryan Lindgren in the face. Krejci was handed the double minor at 5:06. But the B’s gave the Rangers nothing the entire kill and you could start to hear the grumbling from the MSG stands.
Then things got interesting late in the second. Lindgren gave Patrice Bergeron a shove after the whistle and Brad Marchand came to his centerman’s defense, crosschecking Lindgren to the ice. From the other side of the crease Pavel Buchnevich got a running start and nailed Marchand with a crosscheck of his own right across the name plate on the back of the jersey, with Marchand’s helmet going flying. Remarkably, Marchand got the only minor, but it wound up working in the B’s favor anyway. On he kill, Coyle stole the puck from Jacob Trouba at the Boston blue line and scored on a breakaway to give the B’s a 2-0 lead with 1:18 left in the second for his 14th.
“It’s relieving,” said Marchand. “It’s deflating for the other team when you get scored on in the power play. It increased our lead and you definitely get a sigh of relief there in the box.”
The B’s work was not done, however. With Torey Krug in the box for tripping midway through the third, Mika Zibanejad scored on a perfect long range post-andin shot to halve the lead at 9:52.
But that’s as close as the Rangers would get. Halak was forced to make the terrific save on DiGuiseppe from the slot, but the B’s clamped down well after that. The Rangers got nothing going after pulling Georgiev and finally Patrice Bergeron ended it with an empty-netter with 12.2 seconds left.
The B’s now head out west to face Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, all in the playoff structure. It will not be an easy trip. But if they can continue playing like this, the B’s will be a damn tough out themselves.