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The Boston Bruins made the mistake of trying to play the Edmonton Oilers’ run-and-gun style in their head-to-head overtime loss of a meeting in Edmonton less than two weeks ago. And though the B’s played their game against the Oilers at TD Garden on Monday night, the result was the same for the Bruins thanks to a superhuman 47-of-49 showing from Edmonton netminder
Cam Talbot.
“We know that we stole one here tonight. Our goaltender played a tremendous game for us and you know when we’re a little short staffed we need that from him,” Oilers coach
Todd McLellan said after the win. “I think we can be better in a lot of areas. That was a taste for our group that haven’t played in the playoffs in a long time. For me that was like a playoff game.”
The Bruins began the night like gangbusters, and pummeled the possession-deficient Oil in their own end. And though they at one point held a 7-to-1 shot advantage in the opening frame, the Bruins ended the period in an 0-2 hole behind Edmonton goals from
Jordan Eberle and
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. It didn’t help that the Oil goals came off bizarre plays within the B’s end.
Eberle’s strike was a byproduct of both
Kevan Miller’s strugglesome rotation back toward Eberle along with goaltender
Jonas Gustavsson’s inability to get back and cover the shortside of a fortuitous Edmonton bounce off the Boston endboards. And then Nugent-Hopkins’ goal came after
Zdeno Chara simply tripped on an attempted retrieval of a dump-in.
But the Bruins battled back. And hard.
After their disastrous first, the Black and Gold outshot Edmonton by a ridiculous 38-to-10 mark, and found goals with
Matt Beleskey’s fourth of the season (scored 13:29 into the second), and
Brad Marchand’s team-leading 15th goal of the season, scored with 4:38 left in the third.
“That’s part of obviously growing as a team,” B’s captain
Zdeno Chara said of the comeback. “Obviously being more mature and handling these situations. It’s one of those things we got better, we just have to continue to keep getting better and focus for the next game. And it’s as simple as that.”
The push fell short, though, as the Oilers controlled the three-on-three overtime frame for a full 41 seconds before Andrej Sekera scored the game-winning goal off a big Gustavsson rebound.
“There was no frustration at all tonight,” B’s coach
Claude Julien noted. “I think it was disappointing that we fell behind two-nothing early when the first 10 minutes it was seven to one shots on net, so I think we were the dominant team and I think the biggest thing was that they got a couple of good breaks and took advantage of those and we had to fight back but their goaltender stood tall and we just kept going after them and found a way to get ourselves back into the game and get ourselves at least a point, but there was no frustration throughout the whole game. Just determination.”
The disappointing finish came with an unusual start to the overtime that saw the Bruins try to match the Oilers’ Sekera, Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins trio with
Landon Ferraro,
Ryan Spooner, and
Torey Krug. And they hardly touched the puck before it was over.
“There were some other guys that I thought were going to be going ahead, but I was excited and it’s something that’s really disappointing,” said Ferraro. “I kind of mess up on my coverage and he comes right down the middle and I miss my block and it goes in, so it’s a little disappointing.
“I make a mistake there and miss it, but even since I’ve been here there have been ten games or something like that, we’ve played like five overtimes. We have enough practice, we’ve all played enough hockey to know where you’re supposed to be and you’re supposed to stay on your guy. Just a little mental lapse and it cost us the game.”
Although it seems like a fancy way of ignoring the fact that the Bruins have dropped four of their last seven games, the loss gave the B’s a 9-2-3 record over their last 14 games. That’s 21 of a possible 28 points (75 point percentage), and they’re at the point in the year where they’re gathering points.
That’s a positive the Bruins, a team that missed the playoffs by mere points last year, will take.
“We have won games this year that we definitely didn’t deserve to win and this was one of those ones that we probably should have won,” Marchand said. “I think after the first period we controlled that game and if you look at all the stats I think it shows that. It’s unfortunate like I said, their goalie made a lot of big saves and we didn’t do a great job of getting in front but we still probably should have won.”
Random thoughts and notes
- 49 shots and a loss? Hard to stomach. Or maybe better yet, hard to imagine. But Talbot was a in a zone, and he straight-up stole this win for Edmonton. The Oilers were just plain abysmal in their own end -- they often just threw the puck up with the hopes that a Bruin stick wouldn’t touch it, which it almost always did -- and relied on Talbot for the full 60 minutes. But you’re going to have nights like this, and it has to be almost impossible to get too low if you’re in that Boston room despite the finish.
“I think we definitely gave up a point here that we really would have liked to have but at the same time we have to be happy that we came back from two goals again,” Marchand, who had a career-high nine shots, said. “We shouldn’t have been in that position so definitely still a little work to do.”
The 49 shots were a season-high for the Bruins, while Talbot’s 47 saves were a career high.
- Bumping
Brett Connolly off the right side of the second line, waiver-wire standout Landon Ferraro finished the night on the Bergeron line and came through with the big helper on the game-tying goal late in the third period. It’s been just 10 games, but it’s clear that Ferraro is emerging as a go-to option for Julien’s group, and it’s shown for No. 29, with three goals and six points over that stretch.
“It just gave that line a little bit of speed there in the forecheck,” Julien said of Ferraro’s late promotion. “I thought he was having a decent game so I just went with a hunch and put him out there.”
The 24-year-old might not be a top-six talent, but knows that he can serve as a complementary piece.
“When you get moved to a line like that it’s getting them the puck as much as you can. You get Marchy [Brad Marchand] in a spot like that you’re going to give him the puck and let him shoot it,” Ferraro said. “You’re just trying to play your game. I’m not going to find some more skill out of nowhere and be making plays like they do, but just trying to be a workhorse on the line and get moving for them.”
Up next
The Bruins return to TD Garden for a Wednesday night rivalry contest with the Pittsburgh Penguins. This will be the first head-to-head between the Bruins and Pens this season, and will be former Bruin coach
Mike Sullivan’s second game behind the Pittsburgh bench. The Penguins lost Sullivan’s first game with the club by a 4-1 final on Monday night.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Boston Chapter of the Pro Hockey Writers Association since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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