Hall’s OT winner lifts B’s
Have won eight of last nine
The Bruins are proving a lot on this run that has seen them win eight of nine since the extended Christmas/ COVID break. They are a much more capable offensive team than they showed in the first three months of the season. They can defend well. They have the potential to have some of the best goaltending in the league.
And on Saturday at the Garden against a good, physical Nashville Predators team, the B’s not only demonstrated they can take a figurative punch, they can throw them right back.
In a thoroughly entertaining game that saw 91 hits thrown (46 for Nashville, 45 for Boston), the B’s may have lost a couple of leads to the flexing Preds, but they refused to allow their visitors to take full control of the game. Whenever it looked like that might happen, the B’s responded.
Finally, Taylor Hall buried the overtime winner after a David Pastrnak shot broke through goalie Jusse Saros to lift the B’s to a 4-3 victory over the Preds to send fans home both happy and wellnourished from an afternoon of terrific hockey, the B’s fifth straight win.
It definitely was a modernday NHL battle — only one fight occurred — but it was not a game for the fainthearted.
How pleased was coach Bruce Cassidy with his team’s battle level, especially considering they were missing two of their more physical players in the injured Trent Frederic and Nick Foligno?
“Very, to be honest with you” said Cassidy. “All in all, I’d describe it as a playoffstyle game and we respond
ed well. They had a good push in the second. We knew they would, probably the only area of the game we were not at our best, and we got it back at the end of the second.”
The hits kept coming in a back-and-forth third. Brad Marchand, who took an inadvertent elbow from Roman Josi in the second period that opened up the blood flow from his already
broken nose, buried Dante Fabbro with a hit. At the end of a late penalty kill, Charlie McAvoy tagged Mikael Granlund with a nice belt behind the B’s net. Anton Blidh and Oskar Steen each delivered six hits on the day.
The rough stuff may have been more Nashville’s game than the B’s, but the Preds’ training staff was surely giving out as many ice bags as the B’s after the game.
“It does hurt to win. It hurts to win,” said Cassidy. “You’ve got to take hits, give hits, block shots. There’s a lot of little things that go into it.”
After coughing up an early 2-0 lead attained on pretty rush goals from Craig Smith and Mike Reilly in the first 7:37, the B’s found themselves even at 2-2 going into the third.
The Preds got one back
before the first period ended on a Colton Sissons goal off a thwarted rim attempt by Ty Lewington.
Then Nashville turned up the heat physically in the second, tying it at 7:32 on a Luke Kunin goal that beat Linus Ullmark from the top of the right circle.
The B’s were being outshot 8-1 at the point, but immediately turned the tide, getting the next 10 shots on net.
The game only got more entertaining as it went into the third. Marchand snapped the deadlock at 3:50 of the third on the B’s first powerplay of the day. With Tanner Jeannot getting ready to come out of the box, Marchand beat Saros with a high wrist shot from the right circle for his 20th.
But the Preds came right back to tie it 2:36 later.
Pastrnak fanned on a clear and it went right to Philip Tomasino on the left boards. He fed it to Roman Josi, who blasted it far side past Linus Ullmark to make it 3-3.
The B’s had to survive a Urho Vaakanainen penalty late in regulation and then Vaakanainen was on the ice to start the game-winning play.
With the Preds breaking in on an odd-man rush, Vaakanainen picked off the Jeannot pass in his own slot and immediately zipped it up to Pastrnak on the right wing for the counter-attack. His shot dribbled through Saros’ pads and Hall was there to knock home the loose puck.
That completed the season sweep of the Western Conference-leading Predators.
“They started off being physical and we matched it,” said Hall. “Ultimately, that’s the team you want to be. You want to be able to play different styles of games. Not every game’s going to be the same but if we can be physical at the right times, especially on our home ice, that’s something that’s going to a strength of ours as the season goes. And when the playoffs start, you need to have that game in your bag. That was a fun game to play.”
And, yes, the playoffs are starting to feel more like a “when” and less of an “if ” for this Bruins team.