It wasn’t pretty, but Boston managed to take advantage of Pittsburgh’s dysfunction to break their losing streak!
First Period
The Bruins started out great! With a solid passing breakout giving David Pastrnak nothing but time and space to bring Alex Nedelkjovic to the cleaners, putting the Bruins up 1-0!
Then, Mason Lohrei managed to pot home a goal a missile of a shot after a pretty passing play from Pastrnak, Zacha, and Geekie; and on the power play, no less! 2-0 Bruins!
Playing the Penguins feels like the ultimate get-right game right now.
No further scoring, and we move on to the middle frame!
Second Period
Johnny Beecher tripped Rickard Rakell, then they killed the ensuing penalty. Good for them!
Other than that? Nada. Let’s go to the third.
Third Period
Things really felt like they were headed for a nice, even win…and then the power play happened.
I really don’t care for the Bruins’ power play. Bruins still up 2-1.
Thankfully, as time wound down and the Pens pulled their goaltender on a late power play, Charlie Coyle made a quick play to seal things up with a nice bow and pop home an empty netter! 3-1 Bruins!
There, now all we have to do is actually kill this penalty and-
-…win the game 3-2, I guess.
Bruins win 3-2 over the Pittsburgh Penguins!
Game Notes
- Your TOI leader tonight was Brandon Carlo, who played 25:27 total!
- This was a win the Bruins needed. Not just because it broke a disastrously long losing streak, but it critically showed that they can in fact hold a lead just enough to survive a late-game surge, something that had been a major problem coming into this game. It’s not a 100% fixed issue, and today they’re gonna be playing a team that’s a lot better than the Penguins, but it’s a start, and that’s important.
- Brandon Carlo played a crapton of minutes tonight, and I thought he did pretty good! I still think he absolutely needs somebody to do most of the zone exit stuff for him because he super does not like doing it, but tonight he showed some excellent work tonight in protecting his goaltender. Full credit for that fella.
- David Pastrnak’s point streak is now at 17 games and 33 points over that stretch on one of the worst offenses in the NHL at the moment, bringing him into 7th place overall on the team’s history in that particular metric, beaten only by Phil Kessel, Adam Oates, Ray Bourque, Bobby Orr, Bill Cowley, and Bronco Horvath. If I hear anything about him and turnovers ever again while this team is as inept at offense without his direct input I will attain the legal authority to throw you out of a window for lack of puck knowledge. Sitting there and whining about “DEEEFENSE!!1!” on a team that can’t score is a textbook example in somehow missing a forest fire for all the trees and heat.
- I dunno what to tell you about the power play, man. They got one, and so did Pittsburgh. Penalty Kill actually did very well, having been tasked with killing a boatload of penalties early in the game and then later on in the third, only giving one up one goal to Rickard Rakell…assuming you don’t count the short-handed chance, of course.
- While they aren’t paying him the sun and the moon and thus expectations of him are much, much lower than his partner in net, Joonas Korpisalo still needed a game like this and badly. The last time he played with anything resembling frequency he had three games under .900 in SV% by the time the final horn was blown, and last night he finished with a .939 SV%. Good work on his part, I hope to see him take some more starts as the season progresses against teams at or around Pittsburgh’s caliber.
- Three more games until the deadline.
The Bruins play today against the Minnesota Wild! You can read our preview when it goes up at 7am. That game drops the puck at 3:30pm EST.
See you there!