The Boston Bruins entered Thursday night at TD Garden with a feeling of urgency. Boston lost three of four and the desperate, bettering Blues team wanted to get a win in their hunt for the playoffs. However, the Bruins came out on top and prevailed in a huge win.
After the scoreless first period, Torey Krug capitalized on a nice passing play and buried the dish from David Krejci to open the scoring against Jake Allen in St. Louis net. Peter Cehlárik, who recorded two goals in Wednesday’s loss in Philadelphia, had another point with an assist on that play. The Blues answered right back, as Ryan O´Reilly found the way to finally beat helpless Tuukka Rask, and David Perron extended his point-scoring streak to 13 games with an assist on the play.
The Blues took it at the Bruins with a surge of pressure and scored the go-ahead goal with just six minutes to go in the middle frame. Carl Gunnarson let one rip to beat Rask, who couldn’t do much with that rocket. For Gunnarson, it was his first goal of the campaign. Boston got the power play chance shortly afterward and with just four seconds remaining, David Backes tipped the shot from Zdeno Chara to equal the score at TD Garden.
Yes, Zdeno Chara on the power play assisted to a goal by David Backes, who was a healthy scratch in Philadelphia, you read it correctly. Both teams knew the third period is going to be massive with the game tied. Chris Wagner became the hero after receiving a nice pass from Forsbacka-Karlsson and deked to beat Jake Allen and give his team a one-goal lead.
It was Wagner’s third goal since Christmas break, all of those tallies came at TD Garden and sixth overall in the season for hard-working forward. St. Louis, who were 4-0-1 on the road walking in TD Garden last night, attempted to make a late push to get at least a point. But Charlie McAvoy found Brad Marchand with yet another beautiful pass in this game and it was a two-goal difference. In the last minute of the game, Sean Kuraly was able to put one into the yawning cage to record his sixth goal of the year and fifth since 22nd of December.
There were four large highlights of the win for the Boston Bruins. They had a tough loss in Philadelphia on Wednesday night and had to travel overnight to play rested Blues team the very next day. Yet they were able to get a valuable bounce-back win. The Bruins are currently 7-1-1 in their second games of back-to-back sets.
David Backes returned to the lineup after being a healthy scratch versus the Flyers and scored a huge goal late in the second. Backes, who played for the Blues before signing with the Bruins in 2016, scored in each of three games facing his former team at TD Garden. Backes was inserted to the fourth (or third) line alongside Sean Kuraly and Chris Wagner. Wagner netted game-winner and had an assist on Kuraly´s empty-net goal.
All of the Bruins offensive lines produced against the Blues. Patrice Bergeron won the draw which led to Brad Marchand’s goal in the third period. David Krejci had a three-point game with Peter Cehlarik riding a tiny two-game point streak with a helper on Krug’s goal. Chris Wagner shone with game-winner and added assist on Kuraly’s empty-net tally and David Backes scored a power-play goal. From the last forward line, Jakob Forsbacka-Karlsson assisted on Wagner’s deciding goal.
Tuukka Rask earned his 252nd career victory and is now tied with Tiny Thompson for the most by a Bruins goaltender. Rask had to make strong 28 saves on 30 shots on goal in a successful outing against the Blues as he improved his career stats to 5-2-3 versus the team with a blue note on its jersey.
The Bruins should be really happy with this win because it was not an easy one. Playing on back-to-back nights, facing a desperate Blues team potentially playing its best hockey of the season and having a lot of issues from last games. Despite all the adversity, the Bruins came out on top and can now prepare for the New York Rangers team. The Blueshirts will come to TD Garden on Saturday night having won three out of their last four meetings.
