Dealing with their first losing streak of the near month-old NHL season, and on the second leg of a back-to-back that began last night in Pittsburgh, the Boston Bruins simply had to be better. Outside of the play of goaltender Tuukka Rask, which has by all means been a constant of excellence throughout the season, there was absolutely nothing to be satisfied with when it came to the Black-and-Gold’s hot-and-cold effort against the Pens’ all-world offensive talent.

Nothing at all, really.

Back at the Garden for a Halloween matchup with the sans Teemu Selanne Anaheim Ducks, and in a city still smelling of champagne from last night’s Red Sox celebration, the Bruins’ return home needed just 112 seconds to turn sour. Beginning with a Carl Soderberg turnover in the B’s zone, it would be Anaheim’s Devante Smith-Pelly that capitalized, ultimately beating Rask on the Ducks’ first shot of the night, giving the club an early 1-0 edge in enemy territory.

It was also yet another goal that appeared to somehow stun the Bruins.

In what’s been an unusually bizarre week of B’s hockey, the club simply couldn’t respond with any sustainable pressure of their own, failing to put a shot on Anaheim netminder Jonas Hiller until nearly the 19th minute of the first period. Heading back to the room down by a goal in a period that saw them outshot five to one, the Bruins’ fewest shots in a period since Jan. 5, 2008 against the New Jersey Devils, the hope for the Bruins to simply ‘wake up’ became more and more dire.

And with one fortuitous tip pass at center ice, they did just that.

Starting with a successful battle to get puck out of their end, the aforementioned redirect of a pass from the Bruins’ Chris Kelly gave the Swedish import Soderberg the clear lane towards the net, and despite a first-chance save from a sliding Hiller, a slight trickle of the puck was more than enough to give the 28-year-old his first of the year, and first of his NHL career. Snapping Soderberg’s stretch of 13 games -- including both regular season and postseason contests -- without an NHL goal, the equalizer also gave freshly called up forward Ryan Spooner, in the lineup over the painfully inconsistent Jordan Caron, the first point of his NHL career.

For Soderberg, the goal was more than welcomed given his highly anticipated road to the Hub.

“I’ve been playing in Europe for ten years at the highest level there but it’s still not the NHL,” said Soderberg of his transition to the world’s highest level of play. “I came here at 28 years old so I wanted to see if I could play in the NHL, so I’m pretty glad I scored.”

But the joy of Soderberg’s first would be short lived, as the Ducks’ Matthieu Perreault caught the Boston defense asleep at the wheel, striking with his fifth goal of the year, with just 20.9 seconds left in the second frame, giving Anaheim a steep 2-1 lead after two periods of (awful) hockey.

One period to go, down by one, and with eight shots on goal through 40. The outlook? Bleak.

So, so bleak.

The Bruins were basically Michael Jackson’s mob of background zombie dancers from “Thriller”.
And they were 2:58 away from finding themselves skating off as losers in three straight when the Ducks’ Patrick Maroon provided Zdeno Chara and the B’s power-play with the golden opportunity they desperately needed. Taking a seat for tripping up the Boston captain, a Torey Krug shot deflected about found its way to David Krejci, and with Krejci in on Hiller with Chara, a beautiful pass from Krejci to the 6-foot-9 defensemen-turned-forward brought these two cross country foes knotted up at 2-2 with just 2:50 to go in the game.

“We need our players to play well,” B’s coach Claude Julien said. “Our leaders have to be our leaders and I think David [Krejci], again, that was a great play on his part to make that pass to Zdeno [Chara] on that tying goal.

“We’re not a team that’s necessarily blessed with a ton of natural scorers; we’re a team that does it by committee,” Julien added. “Right now we’re scoring some goals and tonight was a timely goal for us so I’m not disappointed in the power play at all.”

Outshooting the Ducks 4-0 in the overtime frame, the Bruins’ comeback was complete when the 36-year-old Jarome Iginla absolutely snipped one by Hiller in round two, with Rask sealing the deal behind two big stops, one on Nick Bonino and the other on captain Ryan Getzlaf.

Another Thursday night contest against a California club? Another steal.

“It was one of our hardest wins we got this season. It was a back-to-back game, late night arrival last night, that’s not an excuse but I think we all felt that especially in the first half of the game,” Chara noted after the win, giving the B’s 16 points through 12 games. “We won some battles and we had some good scoring opportunities. It’s just too bad they had that goal at the end of the second, that kind of put us back again going to the third. But the power play came big and we scored and we got an extra point in the shootout, which is great. The games don’t all end in pretty ways but we’ll take it.”

Boychuk leaves game with undisclosed injury

Taking a hard tumble into the boards in the second period, the Bruins were forced to skate much of the second and all of the third without the services of top-pairing defensmen Johnny Boychuk, something that was undeniably noticeable given the Bruins’ own-zone struggles.

Finishing with 9:27 of time on ice on the night, the B’s were quiet when it came to the status of No. 55 following the comeback effort on Garden ice.

Right now he wasn’t able to come back and from what my trainers have told me, we’ll know more tomorrow morning,” Julien said. “You can’t assess these injuries as far as it’s a one week thing, it’s just a one day, he’ll be better, he’ll be okay tomorrow. They always have to let those things settle down a little bit before we get more. So if we do, we’ll give you more news on that tomorrow.”

Boychuk has missed just 22 games since the start of the 2009-10 season.

Up next

The Bruins will head out to Long Island for a Saturday night meeting with the New York Islanders before returning home to begin a five-game homestand. This will be the first of three meetings between the two clubs in 2013-14. Boston won two of three meetings with New York last season, but will be facing a different animal given the Isles’ addition of Bruin killer Thomas Vanek.

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