Bruins Live Blog: Rask Stands Tall As B's Win 3-2 In Shootout
Final, 3-2 Bruins (Shootout): Here's how the shootout played out:
Tyler Seguin, Boston: GOAL. Seguin puts on several dekes before firing a forehand past Reimer.
Tyler Bozak, Toronto: GOAL. Bozak skates slowly toward net and beats Rask low to the blocker side with a forehand.
Patrice Bergeron, Boston: GOAL. Bergeron skates wide left and cuts right in front of the crease before patiently depositing a forehand into the net.
Nazem Kadri, Toronto: NO GOAL. Rask stops a backhand with his glove.
Brad Machand , Boston: NO GOAL. Reimer turns aside a forehand wrister from the slot.
Nikolai Kulemin, Toronto: NO GOAL. Rask stays on his feet and waits out Kulemin before turning aside the forehand bid with the blocker.
End of overtime, 2-2: The five-minute period could not determine a winner, and these two teams are heading to a shootout.
Captains Zdeno Chara and Dion Phaneuf did get into a little shoving match after the final whistle just now, but both of these teams looked spent.
Overtime, 2:10, 2-2: There's not a ton of action thus far, because it doesn't look like there's as ton of energy in the legs of either team
End of regulation, 2-2: The B's are able to at least salvage a point, which is no small feat given their earlier 2-0 hole.
Third period, 1:05, 2-2: Following another nice glove stop for Rask, Randy Carlyle calls timeout prior to an offensive zone faceoff for the Leafs.
Third period, 2:18, 2-2: Tuukka Rask just made the save of the night, flashing the glove on a screaming wrister by Kadri.
Third period, 6:52, 2-2: Brad Marchand fired a wrister toward net just as the linesman blew a whistle for offside, and Dion Phaneuf took offense to it and went after Marchand. In the big mess of a scrum that ensued, the ref emerged with roughing calls for Ference and Phaneuf. Four-on-four hockey for two minutes.
Third period, 7:26, 2-2: Joffrey Lupul nearly had his second goal of the night, as he redirected a Phaneuf point shot down to the ice. Rask was able -- just barely -- to corral the bouncing puck though to keep this one tied.
Third period, 9:24, 2-2: With his line reunited, Patrice Bergeron buries a backhand to tie the game at 2-2.
Dougie Hamilton won a puck battle behind the Toronto net and fed a pass to Bergeron in front, and he was able to beat Reimer for the tying goal/
Third period, 10:17, 2-1 Maple Leafs: Claude Julien has gone back to his usual lines of Lucic-Krejci-Horton and Marchand-Begeron-Seguin, interestingly. Paille-Peverley-Caron make up the third line now.
Third period, 13:55, 2-1 Maple Leafs: The Bruins are flying around out there, and things are starting to get testy. First, Peverley got in a shoving match with Michael Kostka after the latter offered the former a little post-whistle head butt. Later, Carl Gunarsson went after Seguin following a whistle, leading to a bit of a scrum in front of Reimer, who actually got hit in the mask with a stray stick.
Third period, 16:53, 2-1 Maple Leafs: The Bruins are able to kill the penalty, with Krejci and Marchand even generating a pretty good scoring chance on the short hand.
Third period, 19:30, 2-1 Maple Leafs: Patrice Bergeron, two minutes, hooking. Big power play coming up for Toronto.
Third period, 20:00, 2-1 Maple Leafs: The Bruins are 2-2-2 when trailing after two periods. The Leafs are 14-2-0 when leading after two. And the third period is under way.
End of second period, 2-1 Maple Leafs: Toronto gets nothing on the power play, and Paille actually generates the best chance of the two minutes. He rushed the puck toward the right side of the net, and with Dion Phaneuf hanging on his back, shook the defenseman by stopping on a dime and firing a shot on net with a spin-o-rama move, but Reimer made the stop.
The Bruins have a lot to feel good about after that period, despite the 2-1 deficit, and I think it's safe to expect a fairly eventful third period tonight.
Second period, 3:23, 2-1 Maple Leafs: That's a tough break -- literally -- for Dennis Seidenberg, as he accidentally breaks Phil Kessel's stick while battling for the puck. No. 44 will head to the box for two minutes for slashing, and I'm sure Jack Edwards is ranting about composite sticks on a TV near you.
Second period, 5:04, 2-1 Maple Leafs: It's always amazing to see how much one goal can change the feel of an entire game, and Lucic's score has done that. The Bruins are flying around and generating chances, while the Leafs appear to be on their heels. Aaron Johnson had the Bruins' best bid when a loose puck bounced out to the high slot, but his shot through traffic went high and wide.
Second period, 10:11, 2-1 Maple Leafs: The Bruins have life, thanks to Milan Lucic.
The lefty streaked down the right wing and got behind Cody Fransen before deking to his forehand and burying one past Reimer.
Both of his new linemates, Peverley and Caron, get credited with assists, but that one was all Lucic.
Second period, 11:59, 2-0 Maple Leafs: The first Bruins defensive breakdown of the night proves costly, as Nikolai Kulemin sneaks right up the middle of the ice past Ference and Johnson and beats Rask on the breakaway to give Toronto a 2-0 lead.
Second period, 13:38, 1-0 Maple Leafs: The Bruins are getting their chances, as they're all outworking the Leafs in the Toronto end, but they've yet to cash in. Reimer seems to be scrambling in trying to find the puck after nearly every save, and he definitely looks shaky, but he's made 13 stops so far.
Second period, 17:56, 1-0 Maple Leafs: The Leafs strike first, with Joffrey Lupul burying a shot into a wide open net after a feed from Jake Gardiner.
From up here on Level 9, that play sure looked to be offside seconds before the goal, but the linesman closest to the puck was not on the line and was instead about five feet into the neutral zone.
Second period, 19:33, 0-0: Aaron Johnson gives Kadri a bump in the neutral zone and gets tagged two minutes for interference.
Second period, 20:00, 0-0: The second period has begun. Let's see if these teams mix anything up here.
End of first period, 0-0: Nothing doing on the power play for the Bruins, and the teams head to the locker rooms in a scoreless tie.
I'm getting the feeling that with teams playing each other so often in this condensed schedule, they're just so familiar with each other that we're seeing far too many periods like the one we just witnessed. They are, in a word, boring. There's a lot to be said about the excitement that comes from seeing those less-familiar Western Conference teams to help break this up in a normal season.
First period, 2:41, 0-0: The fans haven't had much to cheer about thus far, but Colton Orr just hit Matt Bartkowski from behind and the B's head to the power play.
First period, 7:55, 0-0: Milan Lucic just found some room to work with in the offensive zone and fired a wrister through traffic on net, but Reimer was able to turn away the shot with a stick save.
First period, 13:08, 0-0: There hasn't been much in terms of shots early on, with the Bruins owning a 2-1 advantage in that department, but the Bruins did generate a couple of good chances. The first came on a long shot from Andrew Ference, which sneaked through Reimer's legs and sat in the crease for a couple of seconds before his D-men corralled it under his pads. Krejci also had a nice feed for Marchand, who was streaking down the slot, but his shot was fired wide left.
The Leafs, who had just 13 shots against Boston on Saturday, didn't get a shot on net until six full minutes into the game.
First period, 20:00: The teams are ready, so let's play hockey.
7:04 p.m.: Minutes from puck drop, here are your starting lineups:
Boston
Daniel Paille-Patrice Bergeron-Tyler Seguin
Andrew Ference-Aaron Johnson
Tuukka Rask
Toronto
Nikolai Kulemin-Nazem Kadri-Joffrey Lupul
Dion Phaneuf-Carl Gunnarsoson
James Reimer
6:38 p.m.: The Boston lines in warmups are indeed as expected:
Marchand-Krejci-Horton
Paille-Bergeron-Seguin
Lucic-Peverley-Caron
Pandolfo-Campbell-Thornton
And on D:
Chara-Hamilton
Seidenberg-Bartkowski
Ference-Johnson
6:34 p.m.: White jerseys for the Bruins tonight.
6 p.m.: The Bruins and Maple Leafs will face off tonight at the TD Garden for the back end of a home-and-home, and I think I speak for all hockey fans when I say I hope we don't see anything that resembles what took place on Saturday night in Toronto.
In that one, the Bruins didn't bring much of an inspired effort, while Toronto managed three goals on just 11 shots on net before Tuukka Rask had to enter the game in place of Anton Khudobin. It was a game that Bruins coach Claude Julien said his team didn't deserve to win, and folks in Boston would have a hard time disagreeing.
Tonight, it's expected that Claude will be debuting some new line combinations in order to generate some sort of spark in his team. They kept things light at practice yesterday, as all righties were forced to scrimmage with lefty sticks and vice versa, and they didn't hold a morning skate today, so it'll be interesting to see how they come out for this one.
Once the B's go through their line rushes around 6:45 p.m. or so, I'll post what they look like. We know that Johnny Boychuk won't be playing as he deals with a minor injury from last week.
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