It had been over nine months since New Jersey goaltender
Johan Hedberg found himself in an NHL crease. Stagnant during the NHL lockout, you had to go all the way back to Apr. 17 to find the 39-year-old’s last game-action, a 36-minute, 13-save relief outing back in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Florida Panthers.
But the Boston Bruins, entering the TD Garden on the heels of a thrilling 5-3 win in Carolina the night before, didn’t seem to get the memo. In a night that began with the club’s enforcers --
Shawn Thornton and
Krys Barch -- dropping the mitts in a marathon-like tilt that went on for what seemed like hours, the B’s and Devils skated to a lullaby-esque first period that saw each team pepper the opposition with nine shots. The Devils, dominated in the first half of the period, rallied back from a 7-to-3 shot disadvantage, while the B’s still-perfect penalty-kill made the Devils’ power-play look like amateur hour.
Then it all seemed to add up for Boston, and not in the way they had hoped.
When a
Johnny Boychuk tripping call drawn by the Devils’
David Clarkson put the New Jersey power-play back to work, a tip-in from Clarkson, good for his fourth goal of the season, the wheels of discipline began to fall off Boston’s tired-looking bus.
Finishing the period with two more trips to the penalty-kill, but hanging on to the slim one-goal deficit by way of a six-save second frame from
Tuukka Rask, the third period opened up with more failed opportunities for a befuddled Boston offense. Striking out on their third power-play opportunity of the game late in the third frame, a restless TD Garden crowd’s boos were finally silenced when
Nathan Horton capitalized on a great sequence and pass from linemate
Milan Lucic and beat Hedberg through the five-hole, knotting the B’s and Devils up at 1-1 with under five minutes to play.
“We got a lot of guys who were here when we won [the Stanley Cup],” forward
Brad Marchand said of the team’s ability to fight back in late-game situations. “When we did that, we were through every situation you could think of. We know that it’s not over until the buzzer goes, and we’ve shown that a couple of times already.”
Forcing overtime following their 13-shot barrage of Hedberg and company, an overtime of chances and near-goals -- headlined by
David Krejci missing an open cage with a backhand and David Clarkson’s rush to the net becoming a would-have-been thanks to a dogged effort from
Dennis Seidenberg -- put the B’s in their second shootout in six games.
Opting to shoot first, fan interference on
Tyler Seguin’s first (successful) attempt on Hedberg prompted a re-do from the Bruins’ snakebitten sniper.
(Seriously though, who throws a hot dog near the crease during a shootout?)
Marching down and burying it once again on the re-do, the Devils countered in the bottom of the first when
Ilya Kovalchuk made it look easy and pretty with an absolute snip over Rask’s left shoulder, tying it all up after one round.
It would remain tied as the 11-year veteran Hedberg and 25-year-old Rask traded saves for the next four rounds before Marchand got his chance in the top of the sixth. Coming in with speed and beating Hedberg with a lucky break through the five-hole (once again), the Devils’ hopes rested on the stick of
Marek Zidlicky, but were dashed when Rask held the puck on the line, securing the B’s their 11th point out of a possible 12 this year.
“All these points are huge, and we want to get as many as we can,” said Marchand of the club’s point-loaded start to the year. “Right now it’s just [about] building confidence, and it’s proven that we can win whether we’re up or down. We need that going forward.”
Horton showing Boston what they were missing last year
Down by a goal with under ten minutes to play last year, the Black-and-Gold had no idea who they’d be throwing out there in search of the equalizing tally. It could have come from the overachieving
Chris Kelly line, the Bruins’ always steady
Patrice Bergeron line, or from a complete and total wildcard.
As we ultimately learned, it would rarely come, and that’s where the B’s found themselves missing top-liner
Nathan Horton the most.
But through six games, the 27-year-old Horton has done everything to remind us that he’s back, and still the same clutch scoring winger the B’s stole out of Florida in 2010.
“You’re not always going to be at your best, but we pull through. You’re down a goal, you’re down two goals, it doesn’t matter you just work hard and fight back,” Horton said of the team’s mindset when on the comeback trail. “That’s the kind of team we are and the kind of guys we are on our team. We all know we can come back when we’re down and I think that’s what makes us so good.”
In particular, Horton’s been absolutely dynamite when the club’s needed him the most.
On top of the basic numbers that have seen No. 18 record three goals and two assists in the last four games, of those points, Horton’s game-tying tally late at Madison Square Garden, and game-winning assists against both the New York Islanders and Carolina Hurricanes come as previous ‘clutch moments’.
Simply put, when you’re at your worst or in a jam, your best players have to be your best players, and Nathan Horton has been just that for the B’s through six.
What a difference a year makes, huh?
Perfect no more: B’s penalty-kill streak snapped at 25
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here tonight to mourn the passing of the Boston Bruins’ perfect penalty-kill. Entering tonight’s game a perfect 23-for-23 on the kill, the B’s run met its end at penalty No. 25, when David Clarkson’s tip-in beat Rask and gave the Devils a 1-0 edge.
Yet, it’s not all bad news! After all, the B’s still finished the night a solid 4-for-5, and are now 27-for-28. That’s still incredibly, incredibly effective.
But what’s made them such a great unit? The diversity. Instead of having four penalty-killing forwards and four defensemen, the B’s are capable of putting a Bergeron-Marchand combo out there, but are even more dangerous when they’re able to rest those guys for 20-second breathers thanks to the two-way prowess of both the
Danny Paille-
Greg Campbell and
Chris Kelly-
Rich Peverley combo.
On top of it all, Tuukka Rask has stopped 21 of 22 power-play shots faced, good for a .955 save-percentage, a miniscule .002 points away from
Corey Crawford’s NHL-best .957 power-play save-percentage.
Anderson makes long awaited debut for Devils
It’s been a long, bus-loaded road for the undrafted
Matt Anderson, but for the 5-foot-11 forward, whose hockey career began all the way back in 2002 with the UMass Minutemen, the road to the National Hockey League has finally been met.
In a career spent almost entirely in the American Hockey League -- 314 games between the Chicago Wolves and Albany Devils, to be exact -- the NHL debut for the 30-year-old nearly came with a feel-good story when the West Islip, N.Y native nearly connected on his first career goal.
“I put myself in a good spot there, and you never know. Hopefully there will be many more of those to come,” Anderson said of the near tally. “I felt comfortable out there and I think that having the first one out of the way would be that much easier going forward.”
Despite logging just 6:57 in his first NHL game, Anderson’s ability to focus on the motivation rather than the deterrents in an unlikely journey to an NHL sweater has kept him going.
“I think it’s just the support I have. From my family and friends, trainers and coaches all the way through here,” the righty said. “These people support me so much that it makes it easy for me. There’s a lot of hard work and dedication I put forward, but the people around me have made it really easy for me and stuck by me. That’s something that is more exciting for me. For 20 people to show up tonight, at the end of the day in the grand scheme of things, that’s what counts.”
Rask at his best in tonight’s 2-1 win
While called upon heavily in the opening night win against the New York Rangers, and then again in the club’s Martin Luther King Day matinee victory over the Winnipeg Jets, goaltender
Tuukka Rask was without question at his best throughout tonight’s 65-minute (and six round shootout) effort against the Devils.
Finishing the night with 25 saves on 26 shots, the Finnish-born starter was tested early and often, and by all means kept this one from being a complete Jersey beatdown on the B’s.
“I think those big saves he made, especially in the first period where we had a couple of lapses. Some tough decisions there and they drove the net and [Tuukka Rask] stuck his pad out and made a big save that one time,” head coach
Claude Julien said when asked about Rask’s consistency through five starts. “He really made the keys saves at the right time and kept us in the game and allowed us to stay in the game. And finally got rewarded with us scoring a goal to tie it up and he did the job in the shootout.”
But in what many would consider his best game of the newborn campaign, the 6-foot-3 netminder didn’t notice anything
too different from what’s become the norm for him in 2013. “[It was] just a slower start for me, I only had two shots in the first ten minutes or something, they had a couple of backdoor plays, we were able to keep them out. Then as the game went on, it was kind of a typical Devils game, they don’t give you those good shots, that make you feel comfortable they try to get traffic in front of you and get those back doors.”
With the victory, Rask improves to 4-0-1 on the year, and bumps the ole’ save-percentage up to .932, good for fifth in the entire league.
When did David Clarkson become this good?
What do you guys think of Devils’ winger
David Clarkson as? Is it a top-line forward capable of potting 30 goals a year? Me neither. Before last year and through early parts of this year, I always knew Clarkson as the grinder that always wanted to literally decapitate then-Rangers forward
Sean Avery. Honestly, though, I totally just saw the pure hate in Clarkson’s eyes when he saw No. 16 in Blue-and-Red on the ice.
But 30-goal scorer? Major cog of the New Jersey offense? Never did I think that was possible. However, that’s the reality of Clarkson’s career; The undrafted 28-year-old is a huge player for the Devils, from both a statistical and emotional point.
Scoring New Jersey’s only goal of the night, a goal that extended Clarkson’s point streak to five games, what you’ve witnessed is a pure metamorphosis from plug-to-star under the tutelage of head coach Pete DeBoer. Pretty damn cool, wouldn't you say?
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