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A lot changed over the summer in regards to the Boston Bruins.
But after a dismal 4-2 loss at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens at TD Garden on Saturday night, it’s apparent that the B’s struggles with the rival Habs have not changed. Not even a little bit, actually.
In their first head-to-head of the season, the Canadiens opened up the game’s scoring just 11 seconds into their first power play of the night, with center
David Desharnais smashing a second-chance look through
Tuukka Rask at the 1:25 marker of the first period.
The 1-0 edge would hold through 20 minutes of play, too, with the Bruins’ best chance coming by way of a net-front
David Pastrnak’s double-shot at
Carey Price, but Price hung tough, and stopped both of Pastrnak’s attempt as the Boston sniper was unable to get the puck up and over.
Two minutes into the middle frame, Pastrnak would continue to try and make things happen for the B’s, but not without consequence. On an attempted neutral zone cross-ice pass to David Krejci, an interception would push the play back towards Rask, and onto Lars Eller’s stick for his first of the year.
It was a goal that seemed to expose more of the B’s communication issues, as defensemen Kevan Miller and Matt Irwin seemed to both converge to the left of Rask to cover Alex Galchenyuk in the event of an Alex Semin pass as the puck instead went to Eller on the right. That left a sliding Pastrnak as the B’s last line of defense, which obviously didn’t work out and gave the Habs a 2-0 edge early in the second.
Loui Eriksson and the Bruins thought they pulled within one of the Habs on a redirect, but were quickly waved an emphatic no from the referee for
Patrice Bergeron allegedly interfering with Price, thus impeding him from making the stop on the Eriksson deflection.
Bergeron’s contact with Price looked minimal at best, and would not have even occurred had it not been for Montreal defenseman
Alexei Emelin pushing No. 37 towards Price.
That prompted
Claude Julien and the Bruins to challenge the ruling on the ice.
But after a lengthy review with numerous angles, the call somehow stood, and the goal did not stand.
That didn’t exactly sit well with many in the Boston room.
“I’m disappointed, but I think what people are going to realize in those kind of things is that on a lot of occasions we’re going to agree to disagree and that was the case tonight,” said Julien.
This was a bad blown call. The challenge and subsequent upholding of that bad call stung more, too.
“I really felt Bergy, first of all when you look back at it, both his feet are outside the crease area, he got the inside position and then I felt that he was being pushed into their goaltender and even made that effort to get out. I saw Carey Price sort of back off here looking for the puck with Bergy not even touching him at that point when the puck went in,” Julien continued. “But that’s why I say we’re going to agree to disagree at times and I don’t know what their reasoning is, they didn’t take the time to explain – I don’t think they need to – but I really thought we had ourselves a goal there.”
B’s forward
Matt Beleskey, a player that’s essentially made a living by scoring goals in front of the net and parked squarely in front of opposing goaltenders, agreed with Julien’s thoughts on the play.
“I think every referee is different every night. I’m not sure what the ruling is on that one,” Beleskey noted. “I would’ve thought that that was a goal. Didn’t seem like he really made too much contact and he was pushed but I don’t know what the actual ruling is so it’s kind of hard for me to say.”
“I really felt, and I looked at it in between periods, and I said how can that not be a goal when the guy has both feet outside the blue paint and is doing everything he can to stay out of his way and is really trying to fight off the guy trying to push him in,” Julien, now 0-for-1 on the year with challenges, added. “So, I thought that warranted obviously a goal, but for some reason they saw it some other way.”
As always, the Canadiens took advantage of Boston’s misfortunate, and extended their lead to three less than two minutes after the B’s unsuccessful challenge with Eller’s second of the night.
Finally, with 14:26 gone in the middle frame, the Bruins answered with Beleskey’s first of the season.
It meant nothing into the third, as the B’s were assessed a five-minute major on a
Ryan Spooner boarding, and an ensuing
Brad Marchand slash made it a 5-on-3 for Montreal.
And though the Habs didn’t score on either chance, it killed any hope the B’s had for a comeback.
Tomas Plekanec pushed the Canadien lead to three with an empty-net goal (the 500th point of his career), while Boston’s
Patrice Bergeron scored a power-play goal following a
Torrey Mitchell match penalty for a slewfoot on Boston fourth-liner
Zac Rinaldo.
The Bruins have not beat the Canadiens since Mar. 12, 2014, and have now lost six games in a row against their archrival. Furthermore, the Bruins have not beat them at home since Jan. 12, 2012, which if you remember, was the game in which Mike Cammalleri was traded to the Calgary Flames in the
middle of the game. That’s when the Habs were in complete and total disarray.
So, yeah, it’s been a little while.
Random thoughts and notes
- The Bruins have scored four goals this season. And David Pastrnak, although he wasn’t credited with an assist in their first goal of the season, has factored in on all of them. In the aforementioned goal, Pastrnak made the steal that led to Krejci’s tally. But he’s scored one goal (against the Winnipeg Jets on Opening Night), and recorded helpers on both of Boston’s goals in Saturday’s loss to the Habs. He’s one of the only, if not the only, bright spot in what’s been an absolutely forgettable 120 minutes of hockey.
- Boston’s biggest loss in this game came late in the third period as
Brad Marchand injured himself going for a hit on Dale Weise. Looking to come in with a strong backcheck on Weise, Marchand appeared to hit his head off Weise’s elbow before falling down to the ice. Not only was Marchand incredible slow to get back to his feet, but when he did it looked like he had no idea where he was, and he required help to get off the ice and down the tunnel and back towards the locker room.
The Bruins did not have an update on Marchand following the game.
You don’t want to drop the concussion bomb without confirmation, but Marchand was clearly woozy following the hit, and didn’t look anything close to capable of skating under his own power.
For what it’s worth, Marchand missed two games in Apr. 2013 with a ‘mild’ concussion.
Up next
The Bruins are back at it on Monday when they play host to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Bolts come to Boston with a perfect 2-0-0 mark on the year, and on the heels of smoking the Buffalo Sabres by a 4-1 final in a Saturday matinee affair on the road. Boston went 2-1-1 against the Lightning a year ago, and will look to avoid beginning the year 0-3-0. The Bruins have never started a season 0-3-0 under Claude Julien, and have not started a season with three-straight losses since 1999.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League 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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