Khudobin backs Bruins
Backup blanks Buffalo
BUFFALO — Good teams have to win all kinds of games, from high-scoring shootouts to tight and low-scoring affairs.
The B’s put on a heck of an offensive show in Boston on Monday to beat Columbus, 7-2. And last night, they went to the other end of the spectrum, defeating the Sabres, 3-0, with a solid 60-minute road game, which featured strong, gutsy team defense and rock-solid goaltending from Anton Khudobin.
Khudobin stopped 36 shots to register his first shutout with the B’s and improve to 8-2-2 this season.
“That was good,” Khudobin said. “I’m glad I didn’t get scored on. Finally a (first) win in three weeks. I feel great against every opponent pretty much, (but) sometimes it doesn’t go your way. (Last night), everything went well.”
Several Bruins rookies had big performances Monday, and last night it was Jake DeBrusk who made the decisive play, as his second period goal (No. 8) was the first score.
Tim Schaller (4) scored into an empty net with 1:51 left after a key block of a Jack Eichel shot by Noel Acciari. David Backes (4) added a second empty-netter with 30.2 seconds to go.
“It wasn’t pretty by any means. Well, (DeBrusk’s) goal was pretty,” Backes said. “But outside of that, it was kind of the road game you have to play on a night, back to back, with a fresh team that’s been sitting here. We’ll take the two points and enjoy the ride home.”
The Sabres, who hadn’t played since Friday, predictably had the jump in the early going and a 17-10 shots advantage.
But the B’s probably had the better chances in the scoreless period, including shots rung off posts by Kevan Miller (high slot) and Riley Nash (net front), and a couple of in-close bids by Brad Marchand with a bit more than a minute left.
Khudobin wasn’t severely tested, making maybe his best stop with the glove on Evander Kane’s rip from mid-slot with 7:46 left.
It was not a period of high entertainment. The most fun came when Miller pinched down the right boards and crushed Jacob Josefson with a big, clean hit. Buffalo defenseman Zach Bogosian didn’t like it and went after Miller. This proved a mistake, as Miller pummeled him and easily won the fight.
Khudobin made another great stop at 9:50 of the second period when he kicked out a Kane goal-mouth backhand. As so often happens, a great save at one end led to a goal at the other.
The Bruins went the other way, and DeBrusk used defenseman Marco Scandella as a screen in the right circle and whipped a wrist shot past Robin Lehner high on the short side at 10:14.
“Good for Jake,” B’s coach Bruce Cassidy said. “That’s one thing he’s got. He’s got that wrister. You see a lot of one-timer goals. He’s got that kind of slingshot able to beat goalies from a certain distance.”
With the 1-0 lead, it was suddenly a question of whether the Bruins could clamp down and protect it. The B’s of two months ago likely would not have succeeded, but this team, 113-1 in its past 14, is playing with a ton of confidence and handled the challenge well, thanks in large part to Khudobin.
“Having that one up there the whole game, it’s one of those things where it becomes a mentality of getting pucks deep, keeping things simple and just finding a way to win,” DeBrusk said. “I thought we did great job of that.”
Particularly in the third when the B’s headed off any possible Buffalo rally, with Acciari earning high marks for his shot block against Eichel. They wrapped things up with the goals by Schaller and Backes.
“In the third on the road, in a back-to-back, usually a team is going to have a push,” Cassidy said. “I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I don’t know if they had a true sustained push. They had some shifts in our end, but I thought we managed the game very well in the third. If anything, we had the better opportunities.”
The Bruins pretty much had the better of everything in this one.