Bruins earn back-to-back wins behind Boychuk’s blast
Boychuk/By S. Bradley
BOSTON — Defending Stanley Cup champions aren’t supposed to have such low expectations.
But when you’ve failed to win two games in a row 10 games, it’s the little things that matter most.
The Bruins finally broke through and won back-to-back contests, as Thursday night they followed up Tuesday’s win over Toronto with a 3-1 win over Buffalo at the TD Garden.
Johnny Boychuk scored the game-winning goal with 7:04 remaining in regulation. David Krejci added the insurance goals. Gregory Campbell had tied the score with 1:51 left in the second period.
Tim Thomas faced just 20 shots and stopped 19 of them. Meanwhile, Jordan Caron moved up to the line with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, and he helped set up Boychuk’s goal. Brian Rolston dropped down and played with Chris Kelly and Benoit Pouliot.
For my complete game recap, log on to NHL.com. For more on Caron, check out my CBSBoston.com column.
The Bruins maintained a three-point lead on Ottawa for the Northeast Division lead.
B16,
THEY have hit a lot of posts. i’m not arguing with THEIR defensive philosophy, just saying it can be attributed to their scoring slumps. not saying it’s wrong. if they’re pinning their hopes on peverly making that bergeron line a scoring threat, i’m not so sure that works out. why do we think peverly is some gifted scorer? this is not a diss. he’s a fine player on that kelly line but he’s not going to fill the net. horton is an important piece, hopefully he makes it back. it’s been a one line team (offensively) since he went out. that’s all, this isn’t meant to be a disrespectful statement.
and let’s keep this stuff in perspective, yes the bruins look better but who’ve they beaten? the leafs and the sabres.
Big Jim
The Bruins are still is the top six NHL teams, regarding scoring, so we’re not bad. The emphasis on defense is the philosophy of Julien’s and its hard to argue with that. The B’s are unique because Bergeron’s line always plays against the opposing team’s top offensive line. This makes them a checking line with large offensive expectations. If Peverley comes back and plays with Bergeron, I think that Kelley and Caron, along with Pouliot, seemed to have good chemistry.
One thing for sure, we have never hit so many goalposts in a season. Can you imagine how many more goals we would have if the net was two inches wider and one inch taller? We would have at least thirty more goals.
he certainly hustles but hustle is never what this team lacks. they don’t go through scoring droughts because they lack hustle. they go through scoring droughts because they value defense much much more than offense, and also don’t have a lot of top end offensive talent. is caron that sort of guy or is he a run of the mill third liner? time will tell.
one thing is for sure he’s had a good week. and they needed it. going forward they really need a second scoring threat out there, as in an additional line that’s a scoring threat.
Big Jim
You’re probably right, but he hustles and plays physical(most nights). I hope at the end of the day we have something similar to Don Marcotte.(I’m dating myself here)
Bruins16,
Let’s give the kid a week before we annoint him. He was not good the rest of the season. three good games and he’s here for good.
Good to see some of you bloggers realize the hustle/hard work of Caron. A while back ago some of you were ready to throw him under the bus. I think he will move back to the third line when Peverley comes back, but I think his days of being a healthy scratch should be over. I agree with Patrick D about McDermid.
I’ll say this, Boychuk’s shot was a rocket. I love it when the water bottle pops up in the air.
The confidence and poise they played with as the game went on last night was very refreshing. Would have like to see them knot it up a little earlier but it happens.
I feel like one of TT’s issues of late is he’s getting a lazy glove hand. His response on some shots that are beating him we didn’t see at all last year, specially in the post season. With how aggressive he plays on angles, he should not be getting beat like that on that shot. I do agree that he certainly did pick up his play as the game went on, and hopefully it was another good confidence boost for him.
I agree, it was nice to see Caron hopping up a line. He really looks like he fits there a lot better. He has work ethic and tenacity like Burgy does, and fits right in.
I loooved that goal by Krecji, but more liked the whole transition to get him the puck. That was a great breakout, starting from some nifty puck skills from the big man. I think he caught them all watching to make it happen.
Man does Seguin rifle the one-timer! He had to have put a nice dent in the xbar on that one.
Although Matinees haven’t faired us well at all this season, this could be a very big weekend for them. Go B’s!
Sure hope that Caron sticks on the Bergeron line. It only makes sense. Also been pretty happy with MacDermid’s play. He had a give-away last night but for the most part has looked pretty at home with Thornton and Soupy. He has pretty good wheels for a guy his size and he is scrappy as hell too so I hear. His old man sure was a tough SOB.
Agree about Krejci’s goal, I was still marveling at Chara’s stickwork when all of a sudden they finish on that beauty. I had to watch the replay to really appreciate what came between.
Sounds like the Marchand injury is not serious. I hope that’s true.
I’m glad they finally got Rolston off the Bergeron line. I can’t say I have been thrilled with either Islander pick-up.
Timmy definitely looked better as the game went on. Hopefully a 20-shot game also gave him sort of a mini-break.
Also, not sure the Bs have a prettier goal than the Krecji goal, end to end last night. Starts with a Chara dangle and ends with a roof job from Krecji. Lucic is a sneaky good passer. Of course, Seguin’s lead pass out of the zone was a tape-to-tape guided missle to Lucic’s stick. I can’t decide if Seguin’s best attribute is his raw speed, passing ability or his one-timer. Kid lets it fly on one-timers.
They have dominated the play in several of the last few periods, even going back to the NYR game. If TT finds his game (he was better in the 2d and 3d last night) then this team is poised
When is Peverley back!!??
Ha MCK you bet. Nice 4 points and counting looking forward to Penguins game. Want to see how we stack up now that we got some good positive mojo going.
Much better game. Very solid performance in all aspects.
Hey, what was Caron doing with Marchand and Bergeron…where did that idea come from? Hmmmmmmmmm