The Anaheim Ducks looked every bit like a team that had spent three days in town waiting for the Boston Bruins. And with the exception of their quick, 41-second start led by Zach Trotman’s first goal of the season, the B’s looked every bit like a team that had gone to war with the Philadelphia Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center just 24 hours before their eventual 6-2 loss at the hands of the Ducks.

“They are big, they are a pretty heavy team, three lines deep with size and you know we had a good start in the first period, second period was probably the period that hurt us and you know then we’re down 4-1, we came out in the third period and I thought we competed,” Claude Julien said after the loss. “We started taking the play to them and had some great chances, didn’t score, but you know the ending kind of tarnishes a lot of the stuff, too, makes it even worse. We were in a 4-2 hockey game in the third where I thought we got better, we’re still a young hockey club and there are a lot of guys that realized tonight that when you play against a heavy team, you got to be ready to play.”

The tempo of this game really seemed to change when Chris Stewart tuned B’s defenseman Torey Krug up with a fight less than six minutes into the period.

From there, the heavier Ducks took over.

Corey Perry scored his 20th goal of the year (with help from a wandering Jonas Gustavsson) at 7:54 of the first, while Shea Theodore gave Anaheim the lead with a power-play marker at 14:27 (Theodore’s second goal of the year), a lead that held through 20 minutes of play.

The second period came about with a switch in the Boston crease -- Tuukka Rask came in for Gustavsson after Gustavsson stopped 14-of-16 shots -- due to a medical emergency regarding No. 50.

Taken to Mass General for observation for what the Bruins called an ‘illness’, there was almost no update regarding the status of the 31-year-old Gustavsson from the B’s coach.

“I have no idea,” Julien said. “To be honest with you I have no idea. He was brought to whatever hospital or so I was told. I’m in the middle of a game here so that’s all I was told just like you guys.

“I don’t know anything more than what I just told you. I just finished the game then I came out to see you guys. Well if I wasn’t told then neither were they. All I was told was that he wasn’t coming back and that we had to put Tuukka in. So there were some issues there but I didn’t get into specifics.”

Gustavsson has a history of heart problems, and while the B's would not get into the specifics, you just have to hope that it's not a repeat of those issues coming back to haunt 'Monster'.

Rask would come in and stop 19-of-22 shots thrown his way, but it meant nothing in a second period that was all Anaheim with goals from David Perron and Kevin Bieksa.

Boston’s lone response came with an early third period goal from Zdeno Chara, his seventh of the season, a goal that cut the Anaheim lead to two scored at 2:04. But the Bruins failed to come up with a much needed power-play tally in a man advantage that came just moments later.

“I think we were kind of up and down tonight until the third period where we really started to play our game, but I think it came down to them really capitalizing on the chances we gave out,” Trotman said. “You know we had a couple of slip ups and you know if we prevent those then maybe we can get one of our chances sooner and it’s a different game. So I think that’s what it comes down to in the end.”

Anaheim goaltender Frederik Andersen stopped 32-of-34 shots -- including all nine thrown his way by the lethal Boston power play -- in the victory, his eighth of the season.

Random thoughts and notes

- You, like most people, probably saw Chris Stewart fight Torey Krug tonight and went nuts at the audacity and false bravado of Stewart. Not only does Stewart hold a five-inch height advantage on Krug (6-foot-2 versus 5-foot-9), but he outweighs him by 45 pounds, too.



But after the game, Krug that said the fight was his idea given his displeasure with what Stewart was doing around the Boston net, something No. 29 in Anaheim Orange wasn’t necessarily on board at first.

“Oh, I started it. He didn’t want to fight me,” Krug said. “It was a mismatch, but at the end of the day, I don’t know, I didn’t like what happened there and it got a little crazy.”

Although the Black and Gold don’t exactly want to see their puck-moving defenseman dropping the gloves, it’s not something they’re going to forbid him from doing if he thinks it’s right.

“Torey dropped the gloves against him, it’s disappointing to see that kind of fight but when your player drops his gloves against you, what is he supposed to do? He defended himself and some people might have done it a little differently but it doesn’t matter,” Julien said. “To me, Torey dropped the gloves like he wanted to fight and I don’t think that took any juice out of our team. I think if anything, it kind of gave a little bit more, I guess, animosity to the rest of the game.”

Asked if Stewart was the biggest guy he’s fought in his career, Krug said, “Yes, but not the tallest guy.”

- What a waste of time it was to have Beleskey and David Pastrnak centered by Joonas Kemppainen for almost all of this game. Kemppainen does some things well -- he’s a solid fourth-line option, he can kill penalties adequately, and he’s not a complete disaster in his own end -- but if you’re looking for a center that can consistently feed offensive wingers for great scoring chances, he’s an actual nightmare. The Bruins have consistently gone to him for this, too. It’s mindblowing.

Just look at Kemppainen’s attempted putt-in of a great Spooner pass and there’s everything you need to know about Joonas Kemppainen the Offensive Threat. (This guy was a beast in Finland, too.)

Postgame Podcast with New England Hockey Journal's Andy Merritt



Up next

It’s the All-Star break for everybody ‘cept Patrice Bergeron, who will represent the Bruins in Nashville this upcoming weekend. After that, it’s back to the Garden on Feb. 2 for a Tuesday night matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The B’s have won all three head-to-heads thus far.

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