The Bruins also were awarded another power play thanks to a roughing call prior to the fight, but could not capitalize again. They haven’t produced a ton 5-on-5, but with performances like Saturday’s, it’s easy to see why Julien would want to give Eriksson a permanent spot with the longtime duo of Bergeron and Marchand. Boston is 0-3 at the TD Garden this season.
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One near-perfect tip at 9:10 by Bergeron on the power play and one win-solidifying score at 18:54 also on the power play, and Bergeron had two goals and the Bruins had a 5-3 win. “We said the road trip was hopefully going to be a good thing for us and we just had to go out there and prove it.” He missed the last two days with a concussion he sustained against the Montreal Canadiens. They had a disputed goal go against them in the first period. Mike Smith got a piece of it, but with the shot count heavily favoring the Bruins by this point in the game, Coyotes’ fans were not surprised by the goal. “But overall, I think that there’s a lot of positive coming out of these games that you’ve got to keep working on those things that is hurting us a little bit and keep working on the positives as well”.
With Arizona trailing late, they took positional control of play, spending a majority of the latter stages of the third in the Boston end. They play hard, they play fast. Torey Krug made the steal in the neutral zone, sending it to David Krejci, who caught Randell with the pass. The rookie lifted a nifty backhand shot over Smith’s left shoulder at 8:42.
The PP, seemingly forever a problem when the B’s were an elite team, is now 7-for-18 this season.
With the Bruins looking for ways out of their early season slump, the old cliche of having your best players be your best players seemed worth a try. Boston started the season with three straight road losses, with goalie Tuukka Rask taking the defeats. But, after the first 20, they found themselves down 1-0.
Just 13 seconds later, Arizona cut the lead back down to one, with Tobias Rieder taking a rebound from his initial shot on net and burying a backhand past Rask. Right winger Shane Doan was credited with the goal because he was the closest to the puck, but Boston defenseman Kevan Miller did the work, kicking the puck into the net as he stopped in front of the crease to move traffic out from in front of Rask.
At the other end, Rask made two fantastic saves on 2-on-1 breakaways, with the second leading directly to the Bruins’ second goal of the night. Coach Claude Julien challenged the ruling of a goal, but was unsuccessful and lost his timeout for the game. Bergeron picks up his second goal of the season, and the Bruins’ power play continues to be effective. Yet, as it did last night, the ref’s call on the ice stood.
“I can’t wait to get back and play”, Marchand told the media earlier today.
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“Everybody talks that we’re a young team, but that’s a good building block for us”, Rask said of not falling apart after the Rieder and Chipchura goals in the third.
