The Boston Bruins have been the model of how to be clever with trades under the salary cap and also a prime example of how it can cause a club to part ways with key components it wished it could’ve kept around. Bruins’ General Manager Mike Chiarelli looked like a complete genius when he dealt Phil Kessel away to Toronto for two 1st rounders that turned into Tyler Seguin and Doug Hamilton. The Bruins win a cup and salaries drove higher so finally at the start of this season the team had to shed some salary that it did not wish to shed when it traded away Johnny Boychuk in the prime of his NHL career to the New York Islanders. As the Minnesota Wild try to secure longer-term deals for its young core the Bruins serve as a bit of a precautionary tale.
The Bruins, like the Wild have leaned more heavily on younger players to round out its lineup and for the most part its youngsters have been more of a source of strength than a liability. After a year of stepping into NHL roles full-time, Minnesota’s youth appears to be coming into its own. So can the Wild topple Boston tonight after a hard fought and disappointing game the night before?
1st Period Thoughts: The Bruins had a close call early as Reilly Smith tried to jam a shot through Niklas Backstrom who seemed a bit off balance as the puck bounced up into the air and then fell right onto the goal line and was saved by an alert play by Mikael Granlund who swept it out of danger before it could completely cross. The near goal seemed to stun the Wild a bit as they appeared a bit listless after the close call. The Wild would awaken, using his speed to counter against the physical play of the Bruins as Justin Falk dropped a pass back to Justin Fontaine who wired a shot that missed just wide. Minnesota would go to work on the forecheck and with some hard work in the offensive zone Thomas Vanek passed a puck out front to a wide open Nino Niederreiter for a nice finish to make it 1-0 Wild. Tuukka Rask had no chance. The goal caused the Bruins to respond by throwing its weight around as Milan Lucic started to take runs at Wild players; leveling Wild skaters with big mostly clean hits. Minnesota was not pushing back but instead opting to pay the price and try to play a finesse game as much as they could. The Wild would earn an interference penalty as Dennis Seidenberg held up Charlie Coyle. On the power play, the Wild’s puck movement was still too slow and predictable and the Bruins penalty killers didn’t have to work too hard to make Minnesota 0-for-25 on the man advantage. Mathew Dumba was still a bit careless with the puck, and turnovers would end up turning the tide of the period. The turnovers put the Wild on their heels and Minnesota found itself chasing the Bruins all over their zone. Lucic nailed Justin Falk with a big check where he coughed up the puck that was swept up by David Krecji. The Bruins were directing long diagonal passes on goal as they would crash the net and they would tie the game in this manner as a pass by Krecji was tapped home by Seth Griffith. 1-1 game and you could sense the Wild seemed more than a little deflated. The last few minutes, the Wild just held on as momentum had definitely shifted. Jason Zucker would get tagged a tripping call that put the Bruins on the power play for the first time.
2nd Period Thoughts: Minnesota had good energy to start the period, killing off the remainder of Zucker’s penalty to get back to full strength. The Wild would immediately go on the attack and Zach Parise would race into the Bruins’ zone where he’d dish a pass over to Jason Pominville for a big shot that was stopped by Rask. Charlie Coyle would steal a pass in the neutral zone and move in on a breakaway only to be stonewalled by Rask. Boston had a great chance of their own as Loui Eriksson made a fantastic saucer pass to Carl Soderberg that somehow Niklas Backstrom stopped and did not give up a rebound in the process. Minnesota would have another great chance a few minutes later by that same line as Parise rifled a big shot that Rask stopped and then he stoned Pominville on the rebound chance. The Bruins would counter after a decent forechecking effort by the Wild and Milan Lucic moved a puck up to Gregory Campbell who was patient as he waited to get just enough in front of a sprawling Scandella to thread a pass out front that was tapped in by a diving Seth Griffith for his 2nd goal of the game as Boston took a 2-1 lead. Minnesota tried to push for the equalizer with a quick passing play of their own as Jared Spurgeon distributed a puck over to Zucker who wound up and unloaded a heavy slap shot on the move that created a huge rebound off the leg pads of Rask but unfortunately no one was there to cash in on it. The Wild kept up good puck pressure, creating turnovers and directing shots on goal whenever the opportunity presented itself. While they were able to get that first quality shot the Bruins defenseman did a decent job of tying up Wild forwards before they could pounce on rebounds. Minnesota had a dangerously close chance as Thomas Vanek failed to make a saucer pass as it was stopped by a diving Adam McQuaid and perhaps out of frustration as much as anything Vanek would take a shot from beneath the goal line that snuck behind Rask and off the far post but it never crossed the goal line. The play would be reviewed and the replay confirmed what everyone saw the first time, the puck never crossed the line so it was no goal. Minnesota’s near chance would be punished with a bad penalty as Kyle Brodziak tripped up Reilly Smith after Mathew Dumba couldn’t manage to clear the zone. The Wild’s penalty kill applied timely puck pressure that did a pretty good job at disrupting the Bruins’ power play. Yet the Bruins got the Wild to back off a bit and the work the puck down low and back out to the point for a point shot by Torey Krug which was redirected by Lucic that beat Backstrom cleanly. 3-1 Bruins. The period would end with the Wild still in the game in theory but you have to wonder whether they have enough fight in them to comeback.
3rd Period Thoughts: Minnesota would get a little lucky to start the period as Mathew Dumba just managed to recover after nearly being beaten 1-on-1 by Brad Marchand and the big-nosed French-Canadian was unhappy at being thwarted and he’d called for holding up Dumba as he skated the puck back to neutral ice. On the power play the Wild kept the puck at the point where they tried to set up Ryan Suter for a shot from the point while Thomas Vanek tried to screen. This was not working too well because of Vanek’s lack of strength on his skates as Dougie Hamilton was pushing and shoving Vanek and causing him to flail about and not do his job of deflecting pucks. Towards the last moments of the power play, Mathew Dumba would step into a slap shot that was blocked aside by Rask. Minnesota would continue to apply pressure and Boston would ease up a bit and the Wild would take advantage of it as Jared Spurgeon found Granlund with a pass who did a spin-a-rama pass back towards the crease that was redirected underneath the crossbar perfectly by Parise. 3-2 Bruins. All Bruins head coach Claude Julien could do was shake his head in frustration over his teams’ lack of detail on defense. Minnesota’s 4th line would follow that up with a tally of their own 2 minutes later as a wrist shot by Matt Cooke was knocked down by Rask and Ryan Carter jammed at the puck before it was shoveled home by Justin Fontaine tying the game at 3-3. Coincidental minors would be called moments later as Seth Griffith bumped Backstrom who fell to the ice as if he got ran over. Griffith got sent to the sin bin for goaltender interference while Fontaine had to serve Backstrom’s ‘diving’ penalty. A bad call on Griffith, a better call on Backstrom. Neither team would get much accomplished 4-on-4 as they were wary of giving up a prime scoring chance a man down. Minnesota would be patient, biding its time for its chances and they would be rewarded after some nice effort along the boards by Jason Zucker that led to him feeding a puck out to the point was one-timed by Scandella that deflected off the shin pad of Krecji and beat Rask cleanly, 4-3 Wild. You knew at this point the Bruins were going to press hard for the equalizer, especially after what happened the night before in New York. Minnesota was showing better attention to detail defensively, but still was not pressuring enough in the offensive zone to really frustrate the Bruins. The Wild were content to dump the puck deep and change. The Bruins would pull Rask with about a 1:30 left to play and Boston kept it simple, send a ton of bodies to the crease and just try to jam it in but somehow Backstrom kept it out the first time. Minnesota was sitting back and looking to block shots, tempting fate as they did and Boston nearly got the game-tying goal as Krecji ripped a shot that Backstrom just got a piece of and the Wild would escape 4-3.
Niklas Backstrom was good enough, making the key saves down the stretch that Darcy Kuemper did not on Monday to allow the Wild to skate away with a victory tonight. Backstrom had 26 saves in the win, and I really thought he brought a calming influence tonight especially with some significant traffic near his crease. I continue to be impressed by the outstanding play of Marco Scandella who continues to provide great minutes at both ends of the ice. He has shown great strength, excellent puck movement and a great hockey mind. Jared Spurgeon also had a great game too; showing some notable strength late in the game.
Offensively the Wild may not be getting much of anything accomplished on the power play, the team continues to play well offensively at even strength. 42 shots against a better than average defensive team after having played the night before is nothing to sneeze at. The team continues to score by committee as they got contributions from 3 different lines and a defenseman. Right now, it almost appears as if the Wild are just trying to find places for Koivu and Vanek where they won’t screw up the works.
This was a important character win for the Wild after its debacle on Monday night. How improbable was the Wild’s win tonight? The Bruins are are now 136-8-6 since the start of 2010-11 when up by 2 goals. The Wild could’ve felt sorry for its misfortune and withered against another physical team but they dug deep and rallied in the 3rd for the win. I am sure that will make the flight home a bit nicer but with the schedule compacted they will have to reboot quickly to ready themselves for a tough home game against the Sharks.
Wild Notes:
~ The Wild roster tonight was as follows: Mikko Koivu, Charlie Coyle, Jason Zucker, Mikael Granlund, Jason Pominville, Nino Niederreiter, Justin Fontaine, Thomas Vanek, Ryan Carter, Kyle Brodziak, Matt Cooke, Ryan Suter, Nate Prosser, Marco Scandella, Jared Spurgeon, Mathew Dumba and Justin Falk. Darcy Kuemper backed up Niklas Backstrom. Stu Bickel was the lone healthy scratch while Keith Ballard and Christian Folin were placed on IR.
~ The 3 Stars of the Game were: 1st Star Seth Griffith, 2nd Star Marco Scandella, 3rd Star Milan Lucic
~ Attendance was 17,565 at TD Bank North Garden.
~ Justin Falk wore #44, joining Andrei Nazarov and Aaron Gavey as having worn the number.
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