November 29, 2014
by Dakota Antelman
The Boston Bruins and Winnipeg Jets engaged in a gritty, up and down game Friday night that ultimately culminated in an overtime decision in favor of the Bruins.
The Bruins, fresh off back to back losses to Montreal and Pittsburgh entered the game rested and revamped after a week of tough practice.
But after all their preparation, things did not get off on the right foot for Boston. An early penalty kill situation in the first period was not executed adequately by the Bruins and resulted in Jets forward, Dustin Byfuglien scoring with just four minutes left in the opening frame.
The late goal served as a bit of a slap in the face for the Bruins. They had spent most of the week addressing their scoring problems and stressing the need to work harder defensively in the middle portions of the ice. Of course, none of that happened.
“Everything we talked about (yesterday) morning didn’t happen in the first period,” said Julien.
The Bruins did manage to turn things around following the Byfuglien goal however. Bruins goalie, Tuukka Rask stopped a seemingly endless quartet of breakaways while stuffing countless shots on any number of the ensuing power plays that the Jets got.
“Tuukka’s one of the best goalies, if not the best goalie, in the league,” said forward Reilly Smith. “Sometimes we rely on him too much, but he does a good job handling the pressure that’s put on him.”
Rask ended the game with 35 saves, several of which came in some key moments during a four minute penalty kill at the end of regulation and the beginning of overtime.
After Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli said earlier this week that the Bruins needed more size and physicality in front of the net, Lucic demolished Jets forward Mark Scheifele by skating hard to tip teammate Carl Soderberg’s pass into the net.
Finally, something they had worked on in practice paid off for Boston.
“We worked on that this week – going D-to-D and up, and that’s what we did,” Soderberg said.
“Looch skated to the middle and left the puck for me, and I drove the net. So that’s how we scored.”
With the game tied, the onus was put back on Rask to at the very least keep it that way. Things were complicated in the final three minutes of the game though when Bruins pest, Brad Marchand, took a double minor penalty for high sticking.
Even then though, Rask stood tall once even gloving the puck down to his stick and clearing it out of the zone on his own.
“You’re just in survival mode there,” laughed Rask after the game. “You’re trying to secure that point.”
His work was finally rewarded by the rest of the team roughly four minutes later when defensemen Dougie Hamilton smacked a wrist shot from the hash marks into the net to win the game for Boston.
The goal was yet another product of a Bruins odd man rush that seemed to get better and better as the game went on. Carl Soderberg took the puck in the neutral zone and skated with it into the Jets end as Lucic and rookie David Pastrnak curled in towards the net. Rather than passing it to them though, Soderberg turned towards a trailing Hamilton and slid the puck to his stick.
Hamilton, using the screen of Pastrnak and Lucic let rip a screaming shot that decisively ended the game for Boston.
“Obviously, it felt pretty good. I don't know if I ever scored an overtime goal before, so a pretty — pretty good feeling, and a pretty good feeling to get the win after the start that we had.”
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