It’s not often you’re considered winners of the special-teams battle when you give up a shorthanded goal. However, in killing off two long five-on-three power plays, the Boston Bruins stood tall when the final buzzer sounded, as they beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 at the Bell Centre in Saturday night action.
Game Recap
The Canadiens, who went scoreless over seven total power plays, have also gone scoreless on the man advantage over their last five games, totalling 17 missed opportunities. In this one, after they failed to score on a two-man advantage for 1:49 early in the second, resulting from holding and slashing calls on Fraser Minten and Charlie McAvoy respectively, after a similarly long, just-as-fruitless two-man advantage in the first, you just knew the tables were going to turn.
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Rubbing salt in the wound, Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm took an interference call after both penalties had elapsed that also yielded nothing. Fast-forward to late in the second, and the Canadiens predictably got a soft call against them, when Juraj Slafkovsky got two for hooking Nikita Zadorov. On the ensuing power play, Pavel Zacha dished it to Viktor Arvidsson in the slot for a one-time goal and the 200th in the forward’s career.
The goal made it 3-1 at the time, but stood as the game-winner. Canadiens forward Cole Caufield brought the Habs within one to close the frame as he deked out goalie Jeremy Swayman for his 13th of the campaign. Aside from the Habs’ ineffectiveness on the man advantage, Swayman, who made 26 saves, was also a huge difference-maker in this one, while his counterpart, Sam Montembeault, seemed to struggle, which is unfortunately becoming a regular occurrence for the home side in the season’s early going.
On the game’s first goal, Bruins forward Marat Khusnutdinov’s shot went in off Montembeault. And, after Jake Evans scored the aforementioned shortie, on a two-on-one with Mike Matheson midway through the frame, defenseman Mason Lohrei scored the go-ahead goal early in the second on a relatively soft shot that the goalie probably should have had. A scary moment ensued soon thereafter when McAvoy left the game after taking a shot off Noah Dobson’s stick to his face.
In Montembeault’s defense, he had zero chance on Arvidsson’s goal. And, in the defense of the now-10-6-2 Canadiens as a whole, the effort was an improvement over their last two games, against the Los Angeles Kings and Dallas Stars, in which they were outscored by a total of 12-1. However, they’ve now lost five of their last six contests as injuries start to pile up. With the loss they also ceded the division lead to the 12-8 Bruins, who got right back in the win column after having a seven-game win streak snapped a few nights ago against the Ottawa Senators.
The Bruins next face the Carolina Hurricanes at home on Monday. The Habs next visit the Columbus Blue Jackets, also on Monday, following a disastrous 1-3 homestand.