November 15th, 2014
by Dakota Antelman
After a disastrous two game Canadian road trip in which the Bruins were outscored 11-2, the team came home to Boston with a sense of urgency. In their matinee game Saturday, the Bruins made good on their urgency, beating the Carolina Hurricanes by a score of 2-1.
The Bruins had fallen from grace this week after their five game win streak was snapped and soured by 6-1 and 5-1 losses to the Maple Leafs and Canadians respectively. They played soft making mistakes by the dozen and watching as their goalie, Tuukka Rask uncharacteristically fell apart vs the Maple Leafs.
They understood the mistakes they made in those games and came home with a brand new will to win.
"I think it's probably the most important part of going into today's game, was upping our competitive level, emotional level and physical play," said Bruins winger Milan Lucic.
Coach Claude Jullian eluded to a subliminal reigniting of the competitive flame after those losses.
"What you've gone through the last two games, I don't think you're automatically going to turn the page. We've got to build ourselves back up there, and today was a good start."
Yet with all their preparations, things seemed to get off on the wrong foot for the Bruins. They were outshot for most of the first period and eventually fell behind when Juri Tlusty banked in his 7th goal of the year.
"We started on time for sure. But for whatever reason, we didn't have 60,"said Carolina head coach Bill Peters.
As he suggested, the Bruins turned things around soon after the Tlusty goal. They killed a near two minute 5 on 3 man advantage for the Hurricanes that started mere seconds after the goal.
"That always comes back to haunt you. It gives you momentum if you can kill it, and it hurts you a little bit mentally if you don't score," Peters said of his team’s losing momentum from the 5-3 failure. "It would have been nice to get one."
Eight minutes after the 5 on 3, a strong hustle play by Bruin rookie forward Seth Griffith combined with a weak pass in front of the net by Andrej Sekera led to an awkward goal for the Bruins that tied the game at one. The goal was Griffith’s fourth of the season and signified yet another moment where a younger Bruin stepped up to make a huge play for the team
“These games are about the veterans leading the way,” said Bruin center Patrice Bergeron. “But with all the injuries, the young guys have to seize the moment and come up huge; and that’s what they did today.”
Bergeron himself scored with 49 seconds left in the first period giving the Bruins a 2-1 lead.
From there the team managed to hold down the fort. Rask made 33 saves and the Bruins hit hard and often to keep the Hurricanes out of the zone for much of the second and third periods.
All and all Saturday was a much better effort for the Bruins as it also featured the 60 minute consistency that was lacking on their recent road trip.
“It was good,” Bergeron said. “Everything was a step in the right direction. The second was one of them as well. It wasn’t perfect, but it’s definitely better. It’s definitely something we can build from and keep working on, but that being said, we’ve been able to keep the lead and that’s something that you can definitely build from.”
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