Marchand lifts B’s in opener
Scores shootout winner to beat Devils
The Bruins earned the two points they wanted in their season-opener against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night.
But perfection will have to wait.
The B’s lost two one-goal leads in the third period, but Brad Marchand scored the only goal in the shootout to lift the B’s to a 3-2 victory at the Prudential Center in Newark.
Tuukka Rask (20 saves) was not only flawless in the shootout, he stopped two breakaways in overtime, one on Kyle Palmieri and then a last-second chance to Jack Hughes, to keep the game alive for the B’s.
Coach Bruce Cassidy was pleased to get a rare shootout win, but the game gave him plenty of material to review.
And, as usual, he didn’t need to see any video to say how he really felt. He saw puck mismanagement and too many “hope” plays for his liking.
“We need to play winning hockey and I don’t think we did that in the third,” said Cassidy.
Here are some of the salient points from a mixed bag of a game from the Bruins perspective.
The feel-good story of the night belonged to Kevan Miller. After 20 months, four surgeries and an awful lot of doubt, Miller returned to the lineup and he looked very much like his old self. He was credited with two hits in 16:49 of ice time and was a strong physical presence on the third pair with Jakub Zboril.
“It was awesome to see Millsy back. We all know how hard of a road he’s had the last year and a half. A lot of guys would have quit and hung them,” said Marchand, who gave the B’s the first lead of the game with a power-play goal in the first. “We want to win for him tonight.”
In his first game since leaving the bubble last summer, Rask was excellent. He only saw 22 shots, plus the three in the shootout, but the Devils had some highquality chances in that bunch, even in the first period when the B’s outshot them 16-4 and controlled most of the play.
“I thought he looked midseason form,” said Cassidy.
He had to battle. The whole league knows Zdeno Chara is no longer with the B’s and, whether it was related to that or not, Rask absorbed a couple of big hits, especially from Miles Wood, who was called for goalie interference twice. The B’s responded the best way they could — they scored both regulation goals with Wood in the box — but it’s a concern.
“We obviously addressed it. It’s Game 1 and we’re in a close game. We’re trying to play the game and still keep people out of Tuukka’s way,” said Cassidy. “Clearly that will be talked about, that part of it (Friday) because we don’t want that to be a trend. We have plenty of guys in our lineup who can take care of business in that regard.”
The B’s new-look defense had an uneven performance. Zboril looked pretty smooth with Miller, but Jeremy Lauzon, who played mostly with Charlie McAvoy, had his challenges in his debut on the top pair, finishing with a minus-2 and a giveaway. McAvoy, playing a much more offensive-minded game than we’d been used to seeing from him, created some chances that were not finished off. But he also had three giveaways and took two minors in 25:33 of ice time.
Nick Ritchie, looking to solidify his spot in the lineup, did right by himself. He got four shots on goal and, after getting two glittering chances, got on the board with a power-play goal to give the B’s a short-lived lead late in the third.
Trent Frederic, who subbed in for late scratch Craig Smith (lower body), had his moments. He was involved in two first-period rushes that resulted in New Jersey taking penalties and he looked very comfortable giving lip to some Devils after the whistle. He and Anders Bjork should have a pretty good competition for ice time.
All in all, the Bruins can be better. They’ll have to be better. And when they get David Pastrnak and Smith in the lineup, they will be better.
But in a game against one of the weaker teams in their East Division, they showed they have a long way to go before they’re the Stanley Cup contenders that they believe they are.