Keep calm and Bergeron
Star back to spark first line
One of the more intriguing prospects for the Bruins coming into the 2017-18 season was putting rookie winger Anders Bjork on the top line with center Patrice Bergeron and left winger Brad Marchand.
When Bergeron missed the first five games with a lower-body injury, the promise this trio showed together in the preseason was forgotten.
Not so for Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy.
Bergeron was finally deemed healthy enough to make his regular-season debut last night, and Cassidy put the threesome right back together with smashing success against the Vancouver Canucks.
Bergeron had a goal plus three assists, Bjork scored twice with an assist and Marchand had a goal plus two assists as the line produced 10 points in a 6-3 win over Vancouver at the Garden.
Bjork played the kid-in-a-candy-store role perfectly.
“Both of my linemates were awesome in that game and they were real easy to play with. That was awesome,” said Bjork, who had a chance for the hat trick but missed the net on a breakaway. “If I can continue to get the opportunity to play with them, hopefully I can bring as much to the table as they do and help out that line.”
The return of Bergeron not only allowed Cassidy to put Bjork on that line, but the coach was able to better space out his youth throughout the Bruins’ lineup.
“It’s something we stuck with in training camp and we wanted to see how it would play out,” said Cassidy. “A number of things goes into it.
“One, Bjork gets to learn from two world-class players. Then, (Jake) DeBrusk would learn from David (Krejci), a Stanley Cup champion, and then (David) Pastrnak has become a world class player. So that’s an ideal world, learning from good players.
“It didn’t work out that way (at the season’s start), but today it did. We’re going to try to stick with it and we’ll see how it shakes out.”
Krejci, however, did not play the third because of an upper-body injury sustained during the game. According to Cassidy, it’s not expected to a long-term issue.
After Vancouver and the Bruins traded goals 31 seconds apart early in the first period — Derek Dorsett for the Canucks, then Bjork — the B’s seized control when Vancouver defenseman Erik Gudbranson took a five-minute major and game misconduct for drilling B’s forward Frank Vatrano from behind. Bruins forward Tim Schaller stuck up for Vatrano, who left the ice for the rest of the period but returned for the second, by gamely dropping the gloves with the bigger Gudbranson.
The Bruins made Vancouver pay on the power play with three goals in 1:37 to take a 4-1 lead. The first one was a beauty; an end-to-end rush by Pastrnak, who pretzeled Vancouver forward Markus Granlund in the neutral zone before splitting the defense and beating goalie Anders Nilsson over the blocker. Bjork and Krejci each added a goal to chase Nilsson, who was relieved by Jacob Markstrom.
The B’s stretched the lead to 5-1 in the second period thanks to the Marchand-Bergeron-Bjork unit. Bergeron stole the puck from Canucks defenseman Ben Hutton behind the net, pushed it to Bjork along the boards and the rookie dished to an open Marchand, who scored on a pure snipe.
“These guys are so easy to read off,” said Bjork. “They’re going right away and they’re in the right spot all the time. It makes it easy for me to get open and receive a puck like I did there and make an easy pass to the slot to Marchy. That’s them playing the right way and, with that much skill, it’s pretty deadly.”
The up-and-down Bruins losing their momentum quickly late in the second period, when Vancouver slipped two goals in 36 seconds past Anton Khudobin (26 saves).
Fittingly, Bergeron finished off the Canucks with a power-play goal in the third.