Four Goals and A Shutout Win from B’s

(Photo: Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire)

After being shut out in their own barn on Sunday, it was not surprising to see the Boston Bruins come out with some speed during the first period against the New York Rangers on Thursday night in the first of two games that concludes with a matinee on Saturday.

With Tuukka Rask out after getting hurt on Sunday, Jaroslav Halak got the nod in between the pipes with Dan Vladar backing him up. At the other end of the ice Alexandar Georgiev started for the Rangers. This is the fifth of eight games to be played between the two teams, but it is the first time the Bruins have played the Rangers on home ice. Going into Thursday night’s game, Boston was 3-1-0 against the Blueshirts.

The first period saw Boston with the first marker of the game, as David Pastrnak slapped one from the center of the blue line just 4:14 into the opening twenty on only the Bruins’ second shot of the game. A few changes to the lineup — the adding of Zach Senyshyn to the fourth line that saw Sean Kuraly on the left wing with Jack Studnicka as center being one of the bigger. Jake DeBrusk was back in the lineup and again on David Krejci’s line, though this time he has been slotted on the left while Nick Ritchie was moved to the right.

Ritchie was whistled for the first penalty of the game with 2:58 remaining in the first period while the Bruins continued to have the only goal of the game. Just 32 seconds into the Rangers power play, Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron came down the wings with Marchand sliding the puck to Bergeron on the left in the circle and he got the shorthander past Georgiev to put Boston up 2-0. Meanwhile DeBrusk and Studnicka almost gave the Bruins a second shorthanded goal as Georgiev was aggressively out of his crease but the pass by DeBrusk was just a little ahead of his stick.

Within the first 1:04 of the second the Bruins iced the puck twice. Meanwhile, a little more than a minute later the Rangers Libor Hajek was sent off for a holding penalty and Krejci notched his first goal of the season while on the power play with assists from Matt Grzelcyk and Marchand giving Boston a 3-0 lead. DeBrusk put his first puck in the net for the season 1:21 later, assisted by Krejci, and with that Georgiev was done for the night. Keith Kinkaid came in at 4:52 of the second period.

While Boston was doing well with the scoring, injuries were causing some shuffling of the lines. Craig Smith went down the tunnel five minutes into the second. He would return later in the period. Then, while the Bruins were on a penalty kill at 18:54 of the frame, Ritchie skated off, hunched over, and also went down the walkway.

Though the Rangers had been able to close the door on scoring with Kinkaid, they were struggling to get a shot on Halak at the other end. Their first shot on the Bruins netminder would not come until 11:08 of the frame and by the end of the period they had managed just three shots total in the 20 minutes of play.

Ryan Lindgren went off for a slashing at 12:12 of the second which the Bruins were unable to covert on. And then Marchand was whistled for a hook with just 1:06 remaining in the second, which is when Ritchie got hurt.

Though Boston would start the third period down a man for the first 54 seconds, they were up by four goals and Ritchie had returned to the bench for the final twenty of regulation. Boston would make the kill and limit the Rangers to a single shot on net. Just past the ten-minute mark of the final frame, Pastrnak would take a holding penalty and Ritchie would get another tripping with 2:45 remaining in regulation.

Despite getting a few shots on Halak during these man advantages, the Rangers were unable to solve Halak who garnered his 52nd career shutout. This was a much-needed bounce back win for the Bruins to end their losing streak.