Bruins Solve Bernier for the Win

(Photo: Alan Sullivan)

The Boston Bruins played host to the Detroit Red Wings. The team they lost to on Sunday in Detroit. The team that currently sits in 31st place with—coming into Saturday’s matinee—a 14-41-4 record. Two of those wins for the Red Wings were Bruins losses and they were both on Jonathan Bernier, who was again in net for the Red Wings on Saturday. Was there something about Bernier that the Bruins just couldn’t solve?

The first game, played in Detroit, was a 4-2 loss in which the Bruins were outplayed in many ways. It was also the second loss for the Bruins of that week. The second game was the second of a back-to-back, with the Bruins having beaten the Arizona Coyotes in a 3:00pm game and then headed to Detroit to play a 12:30pm game. Originally Jaroslav Halak was scheduled to play in net in Detroit, but at the last second Tuukka Rask, who played Saturday, had to go in. The Bruins put 40 shots on Bernier, who stopped 39 of them, opposed to the 20 that Detroit put on Rask. Detroit got the first goal of that game in the second period, and the Bruins Torey Krug tied it up in at the top of the third. However, whereas the Bruins were unable to capitalize on any of their four power plays, the Red Wings notched one in the third on their third power play of the game, and then Andreas Athanasiou, who had the power play goal, sealed the game with an empty netter.

Jump forward to Saturday’s game, and Gustav Lindstrom gets whistled for a hold just 2:25 into the game. While the Bruins are on the power play, the Red Wings read a pass Krug is trying to make and grab the puck. Darren Helm is on the odd man rush with Luke Glendening. Rask makes the first stop but lets up the rebound that Helm puts in to get the Red Wings on the scoreboard first on their third shot on goal, despite the Bruins having been the ones putting shots on Bernier and playing strong. And while the Bruins fan base may have given up at that moment (as some of them vocalized on social media), the Bruins players didn’t doubt they would win.

“Even when they scored that goal, I don’t think we were really worried about it. We just… we had it tonight, you could tell. We came out so hard and and we really controlled the play the entire way through the game,” said Brad Marchand, who had two assists in the game.

Charlie McAvoy who had been struggling to find the back of the net throughout the season and finally notched his first goal of the season during overtime against the Chicago Blackhawks on February 5th, got his second of the season, unassisted, to tie things up at 8:01 of the second period. Marchand’s first assist came while the Bruins were on the penalty kill when David Krejci was sent off for hooking at 8:25, and Patrice Bergeron gave the Bruins the go-ahead goal shorthanded.

“It was on the boards and [Bergeron] was by himself. So, once I was able to close the gap, and I really just tried to read which way he was going because he didn’t have much of an option to do a whole lot with it. So, once I kind of make contact, I looked up and [Bergeron] was all by himself. So, it worked out well. He made a phenomenal play to pick the puck up the way he did and and finish it off,” Marchand described.

Three minutes later, Charlie Coyle tipped in a shot that McAvoy made from the blue line to give the Bruins a two-goal lead. Those two goals in the second period proved to be huge in the game. The Red Wings have struggled a lot this season in the second period. Despite having three power play chances in the second period the Red Wings would get only one shot on Rask, and a total of 8 shots for the period and no goals to show. Meanwhile the Bruins put 12 shots on Bernier and had three goals—the two even strength goals sandwiching Bergeron’s shorthander.

It was the third period that saw the two teams closest in shots making it look like the Red Wings might be able to cut the Bruins lead. However, Marchand’s second assist of the game, in which he absolutely froze Athanasiou and then took to the slot, getting Bernier to bite. Marchand put the puck on David Pastrnak’s stick and he put it glove side high. With 6:57 remaining in the period, the Bruins were up 4-1 and that’s where the game would stand when the final buzzer sounded.

“Listen, we wanted to make sure we got a win today. We had a couple of losses to them this year; we wanted to make sure we took care of business in the right manner. I think everyone was involved today so it was a good hockey game in that regard, we didn’t steal anything. That’s a good way to hit the road, feeling good about your game. I think it’s just an extension of what we’ve been doing the last two, three weeks, ten games let’s say. Again, different guys contributing — our top guys, they do their thing. But I thought everyone sort of pulled on the rope today, I thought [Charlie] Coyle’s line did a good job of establishing O-zone possession time and had a big influence on the momentum shifts for us,” said Bruins head coach, Bruce Cassidy.

The Bruins have little time to rest on their laurels. They take on the New York Rangers on Sunday at 3:30 pm ET. The game will be televised on NBC. The Rangers are coming off a three-game road trip where they took all six points.