B’s go bust in Vegas
Subban grabs 1st win against former club
LAS VEGAS — What happened in Vegas, unfortunately for the Bruins, did not stay in Vegas.
The B’s will make the long flight home today carrying all the bad memories of last night’s disappointing 3-1 loss to the expansion Golden Knights.
Adding in- jury to insult, the Bruins may have lost center Ryan Spooner (lower body) and defenseman Adam McQuaid (right knee) to injury.
The loss left the Bruins 1-2-0 on the trip out West, and under .500 at 2-3-0 for the season.
The story got even richer with the Bruins being beaten by goalie Malcolm Subban (21 saves), making his first appearance for the Knights. The erstwhile B’s first-round puck delivered the kind of sound, high quality goaltending the B’s hoped to see the past several years — but never did.
The Knights had an excellent night of tight, puckpressuring team defense, and are off to a 4-1-0 start in their inaugural season. The B’s didn’t score until David Pastrnak’s fluke goal with 30 seconds left that cost Subban his shutout.
“We just didn’t do enough to win,” said Brad Marchand. “We may not have been as mentally prepared for the game as we thought we were. They wanted it more than we did. They out-battled us in a lot of areas. They were the better team.”
With No. 1 goalie MarcAndre Fleury sidelined by a concussion, the home team turned to Subban — claimed off waivers by Vegas on Oct.3. While many watching back home in Boston may have expected the same kind of meltdown Subban had in his first two NHL games with the Bruins, he was actually quite good.
“He made some good saves, no question,” said Marchand. “He’s a good goalie. He’s athletic. I think he probably wanted to have a good game. He did. We didn’t make it overly hard on him, but he made some good saves.”
The Golden Knights deserved a lot of the credit in this one for working very hard, and pressuring the puck all over the ice.
“They’re a heavier team, they pursue pucks, they keep it simple offensively and they get to the net well,” said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy. “Their ‘D’ are bigger guys who box out well. It’s a hard-to-playagainst team. Compared to Arizona, Arizona has younger skill and probably be a better team down the road. But for now Vegas is a good team, and their record is worthy of that.”
Cassidy sees the effect of having former Florida Panthers coach Gerard Gallant as the franchise’s first head skipper.
“In Florida, Gerard had a big, structured, defensiveminded group that played an honest hockey game,” said Cassidy. “That’s the way he played the game himself years ago. I’d expect more of the same. It’s probably early in the year to exactly pinpoint their identity, but I think that’s what they’re working toward.”
B’s goalie Tuukka Rask didn’t have much chance on the shot by ex-Boston College standout Alex Tuch at 14:39 of the second, which gave the home team the 1-0 lead. He stole the puck from Sean Kuraly in neutral ice, spun past Kevan Miller to skate in alone on the right and fired a forehander high over Rask’s glove hand.
The Knights made it 2-0 with 2:14 left in the second period. A rebound sat loose and uncleared in the crease, until Tuch picked it up to the left of the goal, spun and fed Vadim Shipachyov in front for the shot past Rask.
The Knights checked the Bruins submission.
“They smelled victory,” said Cassidy. “They were the fresher team, obviously. These are not excuses. I’m just saying what I saw out there. Our guys, some of them, ran out of gas out there, because they got overplayed to a certain extent earlier in the game.
“It was tough sledding out there. They play a heavy game, and make it difficult for you to get inside. So, yes, we obviously needed more urgency to create more offense. But they don’t make it easy.”
Outplayed substantially by an expansion team, the Bruins are a long way from where they want to be. then into