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The Bruins and Senators are officially in a tight series. And on the surface, it’s as even as they come.
Following the B’s Game 1 comeback win over the Senators, Ottawa returned the favor on Saturday, as they erased a two-goal deficit in the third period, and capped their afternoon with a 4-3 overtime win.
In a reversal of Wednesday’s series opener, the Bruins played at their best in the middle frame, with goals from Drew Stafford, Tim Schaller, and a power-play goal from Patrice Bergeron. It was an all-situation frame from the Bruins, as Stafford’s goal was scored at five-on-five, while Schaller’s tally was a shorthanded one, and of course, as mentioned, Bergeron’s tip came on the man advantage.
The Schaller and Bergeron goals stuck out as quick responses for the Bruins, too, as they followed Clarke MacArthur’s game-tying goal in near rapid succession. Schaller’s goal came less than two minutes after MacArthur’s goal, and Bergeron’s tally, which came 3:22 after that goal, gave the Bruins their first two-goal lead of the series. That, in theory, played to the B’s advantage, as it by all means forced Guy Boucher and the Senators to abandon their defense-first structure in search of offense.
But the Senators came at the Bruins hard in the third period, and tied things up behind goals from Chris Wideman and Derick Brassard, and a lackluster third period from the Bruins didn’t end without one last kick in the head, as Zdeno Chara took a puck over the glass penalty with just 12 seconds left.
And it was there that the Bruins killed off the penalty -- but were on the hook for the game-winning goal when Dion Phaneuf beat Rask through traffic at the 1:59 mark of the overtime period.
This and that
- Big problem for the Bruins? They're running out of healthy bodies, especially on the backend. The Bruins are still without Brandon Carlo and Torey Krug, who were injured in the final week of the regular season, and Colin Miller was not well enough to skate in Game 2 after he absorbed a knee-on-knee hit from Ottawa’s Mark Borowiecki in Game 1. So naturally, the Bruins lost another defenseman in Game 2, as Adam McQuaid departed in the first period with an upper-body injury.
It resulted in a massive uptick in minutes for almost everybody across the board -- both Charlie McAvoy and Kevan Miller played over 27 minutes while Zdeno Chara logged over 30 minutes -- and their fatigue ultimately showed in a sluggish third period and eventual overtime loss.
Barring a return of one of the four injured, the Bruins will have to pluck somebody from Providence.
One of Tommy Cross, Matt Grzelcyk, or Robbie O’Gara would be the likely calls. Both Grzelcyk and O’Gara have played for the Big B’s this year, while Cross skated in three games with the B’s in 2015.
- The B's finally broke through on the power play by way of Bergeron's tip-in goal in the middle frame, and are now 1-for-7 on the power play in this series. It's a staunch change from the regular season, which featured a 5-for-8 regular season mark against the Sens. This is where the Bruins miss Krug, and it’s shown on a first unit that has a subtle but very different look with McAvoy in his place.
That’s because McAvoy is a right shot, whereas Krug is a lefty. It’s actually been quite a while since the Bruins had a right-shot power-play quarterback (David Krejci has played in the point in the past), and it’s actually a big change in a lot of ways. With McAvoy, the natural move for him at the point becomes shifting the puck to the right, which would run the play through Ryan Spooner. With Krug there, the Bruins had a serious one-time threat with David Pastrnak with dishes to the left. That worked for the Bruins, too, as Pastrnak was one of 22 NHL forwards with double-digit power-play goals this season (Pastrnak had 10 tallies on the man advantage this season).
It’ll be interesting to see how/if the Bruins tweak their personnel or deploy their guys come Game 3.
- You can’t say enough about Dominic Moore’s performance this postseason. In two games, Moore has been every bit the experience playoff performer that the Bruins thought they were getting when they signed him to a one-year, $900,000 contract. Moore absorbed a monstrous hit to make the Frank Vatrano happen in Game 1, and he came through the shorthanded effort that helped lead to Tim Schaller’s shorthanded goal on Saturday. He’s done that while remaining a strong d-zone presence.
Up next
It's back to Boston for a Marathon Monday Game 3 at TD Garden.
Ty Anderson is the Boston Bruins beat writer for WEEI.com, and has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010. He can be heard on the Saturday Skate program on 93.7 WEEI (Boston), can also be found in the New England Hockey Journal magazine, and has been part of the Boston Chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.