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A year ago today, Nashville goaltender
Carter Hutton found himself chased from a start against the Boston Bruins just six minutes in after surrendering two goals on just four shots against in what ended as a 6-2 loss for the Predators. Fast forward to tonight, and though Hutton’s night went a bit better (he didn’t allow two goals ‘til the Bruins’ seventh shot of the night and that’s what you call progress) and though the venue switched from Bridgestone Arena to TD Garden, the end result was the same, as the Black and Gold topped the upstart Predators by a 5-3 final on Boston ice.
Boston forward
Brad Marchand opened the night’s scoring up just 2:01 into the first, striking with his team-leading ninth goal of the season, and his first since Dec. 6. But in a seesaw opening frame, the Predators evened things up just 5:34 later with
Colin Wilson’s eighth goal of the season.
The Bruins scored 128 seconds later, though, with
David Krejci recording his fourth goal of the season, and his first since returning from injury last week, on a one-timed power-play strike.
“I don’t remember the last time we had a power play time,” Krejci, the point man on the B’s top power play unit, said after the game. “It was nice to get one with [Zdeno Chara] and Torey [Krug], they hit posts as well. It’s kind of bad luck but yeah it’s nice to get some puck possession. We made some plays out there. Hopefully we’ll keep improving and hope to win some games with some goals on the power plays.”
But again, the Preds responded, just 1:48 later and on their fourth shot of the night, with
Calle Jarnkrok’s fourth goal of the year. It was the goal that goaltender
Tuukka Rask would have loved to take back, and brought the Bruins-Predators to a strange place (or pace) 12 minutes into the first.
12 minutes in, 11 shots (seven for Boston, four from the Preds) deep, and it was 2-2.
That score would hold through the first and 5:53 into the middle frame, too, until
Loui Eriksson capitalized on a brilliant, patient feed from
Matt Bartkowski, putting the puck home for his eighth of the season. Good for Eriksson’s second goal in as many games, and third in the last four, No. 21 is reaping the rewards of a hot-handed stick and noticeable confidence that’s come with him simply shooting more.
“A lot of it has to do with confidence. I think he’s skating better. When you’re confident, a lot of things come easy to you; when you’re not, you’re skating out there sometimes you feel like you’ve got a piano on your back and your sluggish and everything else,” B’s head coach
Claude Julien said of Eriksson after the win. “I think he’s feeling it. Like all players in this league when they get on a roll, they feel good about themselves and I think he’s showing the kind of player we’ve always thought he was. He’s scoring some goals, he’s making some plays, he’s killing penalties. He’s a guy that you can use in all kinds of situations.
“Right now I think we’re seeing some of his best hockey.”
Marchand would extend the B’s lead to two -- their first two-goal since again, Dec. 6 against Arizona -- enough for his, again, team-leading 10th goal of the year, finally giving Boston a scorer in double digits.
“We always talk about Brad when he shoots pucks, he’s aggressive on the puck and strong on it, he’s a good player. Tonight was another one of those nights where he seemed to feel it,” said Julien. “His first goal, I don’t think too many goaltenders would have stopped that, it was a quick release, quick, hard shot. He scored an important goal for us, it’s important to get that early lead.”
And though the Preds’ late-game charge came by way of
Taylor Beck’s fourth goal of the season, scored 6:48 into the third, the Bruins survived, as Rask kept Nashville off the board for the final 13 minutes plus of the third, while Eriksson added an empty-net dagger to seal the deal on two points for the B’s.
It was a night where the final score -- and shot charts -- really tell a different story than the game itself. While the Predators had their surges in the first and third period, this was a game where Boston really seemed to take control of the puck and revert back to the basics of their game. They had scoring chances from all four lines, and their defense was active (see: Bartkowski’s decision to join the rush on Eriksson’s first goal), while Rask rebounded from a shoddy start to rattle off 11 straight stops to finish his night with a win.
It was more good than bad for the B’s, and that’s something their coach will happily take at this point.
“That third period stretch where we played on our heels, we can look at that, or we can look at the probably 50 minutes that I thought we played pretty well, seeing them play with a good purpose and some strong plays, our feet were moving, making good passes,” said Julien. “I didn’t mind our game tonight.”
With the victory, the Bruins have their first two-game winning streak since Nov. 18-21, and will enter the holiday break with an 18-14-3 record, putting them at fifth in the Atlantic Division and a single point away from the Washington Capitals for the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Random thoughts and foolery
- If you want to key in on one thing for the Bruins in this one, it was their ability to really hold the Nashville bottom-six centers at bay, especially at the dot. In a combined 16 faceoffs for Jarnkrok and Olli Jokinen, the Predators won
three, all from Jokinen, too. That includes an ugly 0-for-4 mark in the defensive zone at 5-on-5 for Jokinen. Boston won 40 of the game’s 64 faceoffs in total (63 percent).
- Another major positive for the Bruins in this one: Their ability to move the puck around on the man advantage. In what has been perhaps the Bruins’ most frustrating season under Claude Julien, the Bruins put forth one of their strongest power play efforts of the year in spite of a 1-for-4 mark on the night. Their movement was stellar, as was their ability to find the time and space for extended zone-time. You still need to see that against a team whose penalty-killing unit doesn’t rest in the bottom third of the league, though.
- Watching tonight’s game, and the past couple of weeks for that matter, you can’t help but wonder if Loui Eriksson has finally turned the corner and found his groove within this team and their structure. Now, while you don’t wanna fall too in love with a player during a hot streak (Eriksson has six goals in his last eight games), it just looks like a totally different guy wearing No. 21 for the Bruins. In fact, it looks way closer to the Eriksson that the B’s were sold on in 2013. No, he’s still not skating in the top-line role that most had hoped for or projected, but the 29-year-old has been a dynamic talent for the B’s on a line that’s brought the best out of Carl Soderberg, and
Chris Kelly, who’s now sporting a career-high five-game point streak.
“Our line has been really good since we’ve started playing again with Kells [Chris Kelly] and Carl [Soderberg],” Eriksson noted. “Getting chances and scoring goals. We have to keep doing that. We’re getting plenty of ice time. If we keep playing like we’ve been doing we’re going to continue scoring goals.”
- Lastly, so how much of a dope is James Neal? Unhappy with the two-minute slash he was assessed on a B’s rush up ice (in Neal’s defense it was a bad call), the widely-disliked winger added another two minutes to his trip to the penalty box with an unsportsmanlike conduct. And even when the Preds survived the four-minute penalty kill, Neal found himself
back in the box by way of a 10-minute misconduct. That kept one of Nashville’s most dangerous shots off the ice for the better half of a third period that saw them down by one goal and pressuring a clearly winded Boston defensive unit. There’s absolutely no doubt that head coach Peter Laviolette would have enjoyed -- or better yet, preferred -- having Neal’s blast out there, too.
You tend to take the good with the bad with a player of Neal’s caliber, but his insatiable appetite for bad penalties certainly got the better of him in this one. And at a more-than-crucial time, no less.
- Lastly lastly-- A happy Festivus to all. Let’s meet at my place for the Airing of Grievances.
Up next
The Bruins will enjoy a brief break before returning action on Sat. night against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Boston beat Columbus in their only prior 2014-15 meeting, a 4-3 win sealed by Alex Khokhlachev’s marker in the shootout back on Nov. 21. The day will come with a weird start for the Bruins, too, as the collective bargaining agreement will not allow them to head out to Columbus on Friday night (still part of the league’s holiday break), like they do on most road trips, forcing the Bruins to leave the Hub early Saturday morning, get a morning skate in over in Columbus, and then play later that night. It will also be the first time that
Milan Lucic meets
Dalton Prout since Prout now infamously one-punched Lucic to the ice. No. 17 in Black and Gold has had this date circled on this calendar since it happened, too.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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