Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara didn’t look like a man feeling the effects of some Thanksgiving Day tryptophan. Leading the B’s onto the ice for their annual Black Friday matinee, the towering defensemen logged 19:50, sparked the team with a fight, tallied an assist, and scored what would be the game-winning marker in the Bruins’ 3-2 win over the New York Rangers.
Despite five minor penalties in the opening six minutes of play (two for New York and three for the B’s), the battle of Henrik Lundqvist and the Bruins’ Tuukka Rask remained scoreless until the 11:42 mark of the opening frame.
As Chara fed a beautiful pass to Brad Marchand, allowing the slumping agitator to record his fourth goal of the season, giving a secondary assist to right winger Loui Eriksson, the Black-and-Gold were up, and provided life to an anxious TD Garden crowd.
Their joy, however, was short lived.
New York responded just a minute and 22 seconds later behind Rick Nash’s first career goal on Garden ice (and third in six games since returning from a concussion), another minute and 22-second lapse from the Bruins allowed the Blueshirts to take the lead, this time coming off the stick of Ryan McDonagh, good for his sixth tally of the year.
It was just what the Bruins, on the heels of a 6-1 beatdown from the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday night and in the midst of controlling most of this game’s pace, didn’t want or need.
And nearing the end of a scoreless second period that favored Boston in the shot department, 9-7, the aforementioned fight from the B’s captain, where he absolutely ragdolled 6-foot-7 forward Brian Boyle, set the tone that they weren’t going down without a fight. Literally.
Carrying the energy from the 17,565 into the third period, a game-tying goal from Patrice Bergeron just 95 seconds into the third period, good for Bergeron’s first goal since Nov. 11, put Lundqvist and the Blueshirts back on their heels on Boston ice.
The result? Another Boston comeback. Another even strength goal from Chara.
Striking with his sixth of the season, and second in three games, the 36-year-old beat King Henrik, and put the Bruins on top, where they’d ultimately stay, sinking the Rangers behind a strong 17-save performance from Rask, who had to stay sharp at the game’s end with the B’s on the penalty-kill and then withstanding the Blueshirts’ six-man attack with under a minute to go.
Marchand continues to heat up
Since day one of Brad Marchand’s slump, I’ve been pretty adamant that you can really only stay the course when it comes to No. 63, simply because he’s too talented to struggle for this long. He’s a proven asset to the Bruins’ top six, and today, it finally looked that way. Not only did Marchand pot his fourth goal of the year today, but his feed to Bergeron on the Bruins’ game-tying goal in the third period was a thing of beauty.
Obviously this year hasn’t gone the way that Marchand has expected, and with the Boston speedster paced for a career-worst 10-20-30 season it’s clear that things could’ve gone better through 25 games, but the 5-foot-9 winger has honestly looked like a dude with simply horrible luck this year.
I haven’t found his skating to be out of whack, nor has his hustle been lacking. It’s honestly looked as if the puck has avoided his stick more often than not. But when he’s on (like he was tonight), there’s just no denying his skill-set, especially with Bergeron and Eriksson.
Now, it’s up to the 25-year-old to put a nice little run together and build off today’s game.
The King is Dead: Lundqvist no longer dominant against Bruins
I won’t lie, I did a doubletake this afternoon when I was looking over the Rangers’ stats on the year and saw that franchise goaltender and all around awesome guy, Henrik Lundqvist, entered today’s affair with an 8-10-0 record and .918 save percentage on the year. This is Lundqvist we’re talking about, a man that for nearly a decade now has been the face of New York hockey.
The King of New York. The King of the NHL’s crease, for that matter. Henrik!
In Boston, Lundqvist has been the bogeyman. Period.
He’s crushed the Bruins over his career, entering last year’s second round series against Boston with 21 wins, six shutouts, and a .943 save percentage in 30 career games against the Black-and-Gold. Since that series though, Lundqvist has looked simply pedestrian against the Bruins’ hit-0r-miss offense. And that’s kinda strange. Including last spring’s five-game playoff series and two games against Boston this year, Henrik has recorded one win and boasts a mild .915 save percentage against the Black-and-Gold.
“Well I think the last few games they got us, but before that, I think we had pretty good success against them, so we know it’s a team we can beat,… Lundqvist said of the Bruins after the loss, his 11th of the season. “But, it’s a bounce here and there, and it’s the difference a lot of times. Today, they got a couple bounces in the third that changed the game.…
Obviously, Lundqvist’s struggles in 2013 haven’t come against just the Bruins, but it’s clear that No. 30 doesn’t look like the goalie we’re accustomed to watching.
Frustration is undoubtedly seeping into his game (and perhaps taking over him right now), and that was clear just from watching him leave to the locker room before the game was even over, something that ultimately resulted in an extremely awkward situation when the Rangers had to retrieve him back onto the ice for a faceoff in their end with 3.6 seconds to go.
Leaving the bench early -- whether you expect the team to win or not -- is not a good look.
Ever.
And that’s the kind of stuff that’s just baffling when it comes to Lundqvist this season. Obviously, he has reason to be frustrated, whether that’s with himself or the team in front of him, and while he’s just two games removed from getting yanked after being torched by the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the idea of him bailing on his team when they’re down by one just seems unlike him.
Up next
The Bruins return to the Garden tomorrow night for a battle with the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Bruins won the previous two meetings between the two, and the last one via the shootout, and this game will conclude the season series. With Columbus also playing tonight and turning to Sergei Bobrovsky, it shouldn’t be a shock to anybody if Saturday night is a battle of backups between Chad Johnson and Curtis McElhinney.