B’s do banged-up job
SUNRISE, Fla. — The Bruins made life very difficult for themselves last night against the Panthers. A poor first period and the seven power plays the B’s gave the home team should, most nights, have doomed them to defeat.
But not on this night. Not with Tuukka Rask in goal.
Rask was phenomenal, with a 33-save near-shutout that allowed the B’s to hang on for a most improbable 2-1 victory.
“It was a real bad start,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “We had a goaltender who was ready to play, and he kept us in there.”
Rask was backed by a pair of somewhat unusual goals — an early penalty shot conversion by Brad Marchand and a shorthanded tally by Dominic Moore during the second period from almost on the goal line in the left corner.
“We’ve lost some games where we were extremely good,” Julien said. “(Last night), we made the most out of what we had. These two points are going to be just as important as any two throughout the year. We’ll take it.”
The Bruins had Patrice Bergeron, who was questionable to play with an undisclosed injury, in the lineup, but they remained without David Pastrnak (suspension) and David Backes (elbow surgery), among others.
For an undermanned team, a break here and there is quite welcome. And the B’s got one just 3:53 in, as Marchand was on a clean break-in when he was hooked from behind by exteammate Reilly Smith to set up the penalty shot.
Marchand made it look pretty easy. He skated in on Roberto Luongo, froze the Florida goalie with a forehand feint, then went to the backhand as he cut to the right and tossed the puck up under the crossbar. His fourth goal of the season was Marchand’s 300th NHL point, in his 463rd game.
The penalty shot changed the complexion of an opening 20 minutes that ended with the score 1-0 but was otherwise dominated by the home team. The Panthers held a 13-3 edge in shots in the period — with the B’s not registering a shot after the goal. Florida produced at least five quality scoring chances, all of which were either shot wide or stopped by Rask.
“We had so many turnovers, it was a real bad start,” Julien said. “It was a bad period. The puck management was poor.”
The Bruins appeared to tighten things up and play better in the second period, and they got another gamechanging break.
At 6:16, the B’s were killing a penalty when the Panthers turned the puck over high in their zone. Moore grabbed the puck near the left boards and moved in deep, then whipped a shot on net. The puck flew high behind Luongo, struck something and caromed out on the other side as play continued. But at the next stop, the officials checked the video, and it was obvious the puck went into the net, hit an inside bar and bounced out. So it was a shorthanded goal and a fairly improbable 2-0 lead.
“Sometimes you can surprise a goalie from those kind of angles,” Moore said. “You try and release it quick, and you never know.”
But if it was a night of good fortune, the Bruins also spent a lot of time trying to ruin their own luck — sending the Panthers onto one power play after another.
Yet the B’s killed all seven Florida power plays, most notably the last one, with 3:20 left and the score 2-1. The disadvantage became 6-on-4 when Panthers coach Gerard Gallant yanked Luongo.
Rask and his teammates kept the puck out of the net during the final frantic minutes despite hardly ever clearing it out of the zone.
“The number of penalties we’re taking, I’m not going to say it’s alarming, but we need to fix it,” Julien said. “Guys are being overutilized because of that, and we’re losing momentum in games because if it. But our penalty killers are doing a great job.”
A remarkable night. Talk about winning ugly.
“The first period, the way we played, we probably didn’t deserve the win,” Rask said. “But we got better after that.
We did better things; the negative was that we took a lot of penalties. But the positive from that was that the penalty kill was great and 100 percent.”