Bruins are bedeviled once again
Blanked by Devils for the second time in three weeks
DEVILS 1 BRUINS 0
There is no team like the New Jersey Devils to highlight the Bruins’ ongoing scoring scoring woes.
For the second time in as many meetings, the Devils walked into the Garden and needed to score only one goal to nab two points from the offensively-challenged Bruins in another 1-0 game.
But the B’s thought they had scored not one but two goals with goalie Jaroslav Halak pulled in the final crazy 70 seconds.
The Bruins appeared to have tied the game with 1:10 remaining when Patrice Bergeron pulled a loose puck out of the pack in the crease and lifted it over goalie Mackenzie Blackwood. The Devils challenged the play for goalie interference and it was overturned as it was ruled David Krejci interfered with Blackwood by pushing the puck out from under the goalie’s glove to keep it alive.
Then the B’s thought they had tied it again at with 8.3 seconds left, but Blackwood kicked out a loose puck before it could go all the way over the line. A video review upheld that call.
“I think the goalie interference could have gone either way,” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “He signaled a goal, he was right in front of it, the official, so I thought typically it’s supposed to be something egregious. … I think if you saw an on-ice angle then David’s stick gets in there before he covers the puck. But I don’t know. What am I supposed to say on that? They make the call. It didn’t go our way. We haven’t had a lot of luck with those calls anyway. … We really, really have to work to score goals and, when we do, they come back”
Blackwood hung on for the 40-save shutout.
The Bruins have now gone five games against the Devils without a 5-on-5 goal and, on Sunday, they went 0-for-4 on the power play as well, making it an 0-for-9 weekend on the man advantage.
The Bruins got a great opportunity to even the game at 4:49 of the third when Janne Kuokkanen high-sticked Charlie McAvoy. The call was initially missed but the officials got it right upon review, tagging Kuokkanen with a double minor.
The B’s did everything but score, keeping he Devils pinned down in the zone for long stretches and just missing the net on a couple of occasions. Then, with 14 seconds left in the advantage, McAvoy took a tripping call on Yegor Sharangovic.
“We can probably have a 15-minute discussion about where we’re at offensively and why but I don’t think this is the time and the place for that,” said Cassidy. “Certainly our power play could have helped us. We had some good looks. Bergie’s shot went right through him and typically it would go in but it went wide, and we had a couple of good looks around the net. The secondary scoring guys didn’t generate much and the top guys didn’t have any luck around the net.”
For the second game in a row, the B’s spotted the their guests a 1-0 lead in the first period. While the Devils outshot them 12-9 in the opening 20 minutes, the B’s did have some good chances when they crashed the net a couple of times but Blackwood held his ground. The B’s also had the only power play of the first and, despite some promising early sequences, it petered out in the second half of the manup situation.
The Devils got the only goal they needed at 16:37 on a fortunate bounce. With Kyle Palmieri skating toward the net, defenseman Ty Smith fired a shot that went off Palmieri’s leg and past Halak (28 saves) for the 1-0 advantage.
It was the kind of goal Cassidy longed for, a defenseman simply getting his shot through from out high.
“It’s a lucky goal, it really is, and we didn’t get any of those breaks tonight. But the fact that (Smith) got it through the first layer is huge,” said Cassidy.
With Brad Marchand missing his second game on the COVID protocol list, the B’s had not gotten much out of it’s top line. To start the second, Cassidy dropped Trent Frederic down to the Charlie Coyle line and moved up Anders Bjork to play with Bergeron and David Pastrnak.
It did not produce any better results and, when he went back to Frederic on that line, it got even worse. In a puck battle along the boards, Frederic accidentally elbowed Bergeron in the head. Bergeron skated slowly off the ice the and went down the tunnel. He missed the rest of the second but returned for the third period, his nose considerably larger.
“I’m good. My nose took a beating, but I’m good,” said Bergeron, managing a smile.
Meanwhile, Halak kept the B’s within reach, making several strong saves on the Devils’ two power plays.
The B’s got to start the third period on the powerplay when P.K. Subban tripped up Jack Studnicka with 17.9 seconds left in the second. They could have easily had a 5-on-3 when Pavel Zacha tripped Krejci but it was not called, perhaps the officials believing Krejci helped it along.
That call didn’t go the B’s way, and it would be a continuing theme throughout the night.