Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins certainly threw in his hat for best goal of the year on Thursday night during Boston’s 3-2 shootout win over the Buffalo Sabres.
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“I like his production”, Julien told the media following Tuesday’s overtime loss to the Maple Leafs.
Boston Bruins’ Ryan Spooner, left, and Matt Beleskey (39) celebrate a goal by Spooner during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Buffalo Sabres, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016 in Buffalo, N.Y. Ryan Spooner scored the lone goal in the shootout on Boston’s first shot.
It’s hard to overlook the setup for this contest. The 5-foot-9 winger has been an absolute monster for Boston since Day 1 of the regular season, has scored eight goals in his last eight games played, and is still paced for a 38-goal season.
That’s the expectation. The reality is that Kane and the Sabres will probably give everything they have and then some to the B’s at TD Garden tomorrow night. Puck drops at 7 PM. The Sabres actually outworked their guests for long stretches.
The Bruins took a break from blowing third-period leads against bad teams by coming back against a bad team Thursday. “I’m going to get you 20.’ I said ‘Alright, I’ll hold you to that.’ And he did”. Reinhart made it 2-0 when he tipped a shot by Sabres defenseman Mark Pysyk past Rask. Nobody panicked. Everybody continued to compete.
“I think I could still improve some areas in my game defensively, and at times I can force things a little too much”.
CAPITALS 3, ISLANDERS 2: Alex Ovechkin scored the winning goal in his return from a one-game suspension for skipping the All-Star Game, and the Washington Capitals avoided a third straight loss by beating the New York Islanders.
“I went to [Kane] in the shootout because he did have that night”. “When I pulled it through, I just tried to get Bogosian’s stick out of the way and get a shot off so luckily it found the net”.
The Buffalo Sabres were in the driver’s seat early in the second period when Sam Reinhart gave them a quick 2-0 lead in the stanza. Sabres rookie phenoms Jack Eichel of North Chelmsford was unable to clear a rebound off a shot by Bruins defenseman Torey Krug.
“It was just a shot to the net”, Johnson said. Marchand got the puck in the Bruins’ zone at the tail end of a Sabres power play and proceeded to wheel around and skate past four Buffalo players before sending a backhander past Chad Johnson. At the same time, Boston has scored a power-play goal in just one of their last eight games.
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“They went up by two there and we could’ve got down on ourselves, but we handled it extremely well and that was good to see”, Spooner said. “Tonight he wasn’t just good scoring, he was good everywhere; he was all over the ice”. I thought this was probably a real complete game on his part. And Rask had to battle to save the game when the Sabres had the extra man. “Even though we were behind most of the game, we were playing pretty well and we limited a lot of chances and ultimately we got the win – which is what we need”.
