Your Boston Bruins completed the back half of what those around the NHL call a “scheduled loss”, as they complete the NY road trip with wins in successive nights. Last night on Long Island the B’s walked through the Islanders 4-1 and tonight they took their talents to Manhattan and handled the Rangers 3-1. That’s another 4pts in the standings and the B’s earned a few days off. Maybe if the two NY teams combined their best players and had that squad play the Bruins they’d fare better? Make the Bruins take on a trashbag all star team from NY?
Since you’ve been good, and I’m still on the positive vibes only holiday mindset; I’m going to give you a bonus breakdown as I will attempt the rare 2-fer in this post. That’s right, I’ll go the extra mile for you Dear Reader and give you the skinny on both games played in the Empire State.
Up first was the trip to Long Island. The Bruins rolled in with Linus Ullmark in net and the big guy was lights out…. again. The only blemish on his game was a slapper from the ghost of Zach Parise that beat Ullmark in the first. Ullmark was dialed in and tracking the puck all game. The Ice Bear Dude was fluid side to side and just chilling in the nets on the way to his 100th career victory, not a big deal.
First up was the local boy Charlie McAvoy as he finished off a Matt Grzelcyk feed in the NYI end. Grz circled the net and walked up the RW wall before finding Chuckie Bright Lights on the opposite wing. McAvoy pounded this one past Semyon Varlamov and we had a tie game. Great to see McAvoy get one in front of what was probably an entire section of friends and family.
Up next was Darla’s dad, Derek Forbort who tucked in a stray puck in the paint for his 3rd of the year. Great to see the D activated and contributing on the offensive end. Not sure F-Orr-bort would be going to the net in that sequence under Butchie.
That score held until the 3rd until David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand upped the skill level on the Island. McAvoy carried the puck into the zone before dishing to Marchand who eventually gave it back to him from the RW circle. McAvoy spun the puck over to Pastrnak at the LW circle and Pasta gave Marchand a slap-pass to the RW dot and it was in the net before Varlamov knew what happened. I mean this is borderline abusive of the NYI goalie.
Trent Frederic finished off the scoring when he converted a Charlie Coyle feed coming out of the right corner. After some big boy work along the wall by Coyle, Freddie and Craig Smith; Coyle ended up with the puck in the RW corner and fed Freddie coming off the wall. Frederic tripped, got up and buried a forehand over Varlamov’s blocker to make it 4 on the night. That makes a new high for Frederic in goals and he’s tied his previous career best in points with another half of a season to go.
There was a little extra sauce for the Huggy Bears last night. This goalie tandem is unbelievable as they are pushing each other to play better all while supporting each other. It speaks to the culture in the organization set by players over the last 10-15 years. Just great to see.
The Bruins stayed the night in NY and rolled into MSG today with roughly 20 hours between final horn and puck drop. The Rags? They’ve been off since playing Monday and had to be licking their chops as they were going to face the Bruins “backup” in Jeremy Swayman. And not sure if you saw the play, but Patrice Bergeron was questionable tonight after taking a late puck to the face vs. the NYI. I mean, how could you think the B’s had a chance? The Rangers ran it up to the Eastern Conference Finals last year, they have the reigning Vezina winner in net and have been lights out the last 15 games or so. Oh what’s that? You hadn’t heard? The Bruins are a motherfucking wagon.
Well it took less than 2 minutes played to quiet the Rangers barn. Pavel Zacha re-directed a David Krejci shot (maybe it was a pass, I mean the guy is basically Neo out there, who knows what he’ll do next) up and over the blocker on Igor Shesterkin to give the boys an early lead. As great a play this was from Zacha, look at Krejci “in the eddy of the flow” as Homeboy Jack likes to say, he’s bumping a self pass laterally off the boards to avoid 2 NYR defenders. This is the NHL, he shouldn’t be able to do that!!
That score held through the end of the period as the physicality ramped up quite a bit as the game progressed. Neither team looked especially strong on the power play and although the Rangers had more zone-time, the Bruins kept the NYR to the perimeter and Swayman was like Pacman out there gobbling up pucks. Can I talk about Swayman here for a second? He was so good tonight, he may garner Vezina votes. The entire NHL knows that the Rangers play side to side, they like to possess and work the seam passes cross-ice. Clearly Sway did his homework as he was ahead of those passes a number of times, but in control. He was never scrambling back if he want too far across and was squared to shooters all night and finding pucks through heavy traffic. These goalies…
Even with the Bruins not playing their best for stretches of the 2nd they still got the job done when The Captain got his 17th of the year with help from Marchand (on the pass) and Craig Smith (on the accidentally on purpose snow job). Marchand gained the zone and fed Bergeron coming late from the top of the LW circle, meanwhile Smith was busting ass to the net. Bergy with the catch and release shot from up top and he beat Shesterkin over the blocker. The snow job? Oh yeah, Smitty came with a hard stop right at the top of the paint and Igor acted like the Wicked Witch of the West and he’s melting… he’s melting….. 2-0 good guys.
The Bruins opened the 3rd with Connor Clifton in the box for sailing the puck over the glass for a delay of game. As the Bruins killed off the penalty, Marchand broke through the neutral zone with Cliffy coming out of the box. The pair broke in on Ryan Lindgren (actually love this kid and how he plays. Now that we know how that Rick Nash deal worked out, I’d call for a re-do) and Marchand laid some perfect sauce to Cliffy who put one short side top shelf. As Brick said on the NESN feed, “that looked like a 50 goal scorer’s touch”. Fuck yeah Cliffy.
The Rangers got on the board when Trochek Kreider Panarin Zibinajed Fox (checks notes) Ben Harpur got a wrister through traffic to put the only dent in Swayman’s perfect game. It was Harpur’s first goal in nearly 4 years (111GP). I’m no expert, but you need your big dogs to do something to have any post season success right? Tough look for the NYR when Jimmy Vesey is the best player for your squad in an Original Six matchup at home. Tune in to this week’s podcast as you’ll get to hear my co-host Ked doing his mental gymnastics to come up with some nonsense defending the Rangers. You can find all of our podcasts here or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Bruins are off until Sunday night when they welcome the San Jose Sharks into the TD Garden. A question for you Dear Reader, give me your best Bruins goalie tandem? And yes, that includes all of you living in your Mom’s basement saying that the Bruins aren’t tough enough. Wipe the Cheetos dust from your sausage fingers and mash one of the buttons below.
One last look at The Huggy Bears even though Nick Foligno made Ully wait. After his hot mic clip went viral the other night, Uncle Nicky probably needed a hug.
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