On Wednesday night, the Boston Bruins played host to the rival Philadelphia Flyers. One of these teams played in a primetime game the night before in another city and didn’t arrive in Boston until late last night, while the other had been idle since this past Saturday. And hearing from one angry Claude Julien following Boston’s 5-4 overtime loss on home ice told you exactly who was who.
“We played a light game tonight. A lot lighter than them, and they certainly were better in the battles than we were, and they were certainly better at getting back to a scoring position than we were preventing them from getting there,” Julien said after the B’s loss, their fourth at home in as many tries. “We had too many guys with light sticks, too many guys playing a light game, and that’s not the way we’re going to have some success. So it’s unacceptable, and what’s happened tonight, I think we probably deserved. They were the hungrier team, and we didn’t respond well. Too many light guys.”
The Flyers opened up the scoring 9:28 into the first period behind Pierre-Edouard Bellemare’s first goal of the season. (Sidenote: Has anybody in Philadelphia started calling him the Fresh Prince of Bellemare, West Philadelphia born and raised? If not, PayPal me $10 or send me a cheesesteak from Tony Luke’s near the Wells Fargo Center and it’s yours.) The goal came mere seconds after Zac Rinaldo, in his first game against his former club, nearly beat Michal Neuvirth at the other end, and after a straight-up disastrous rebound given up by B’s netminder Tuukka Rask.
Misfortune upon misfortune has been the case for the Black and Gold on Garden ice, for whatever reason, but the Bruins found the equalizer just four minutes later with Brett Connolly’s first goal in a Bruins uniform. On a line with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, the former sixth-overall pick did what the Bruins have wanted him to do, and found a way to capitalize on the open ice he was given, and pot home a greasy-but-welcomed tally of his own.
“Got a lot of chances in the first four games and it’s a matter of sticking with it now and kind of riding the wave a little bit,” Connolly, a healthy scratch in the Bruins’ last game, said. “I think that one maybe made up for the chances I wasn’t able to finish earlier, but it was very nice to see that one go in.”
1:36 later, predictably, the Flyers jumped back ahead with Sam Gagner’s snipe of a shot.
The Gagner goal, his second in a Philadelphia uniform, came back to an issue of gap control with the Bruins, as Kevan Miller seemed unable to pick up Gagner in time to realistically challenge the shot without screening his own netminder, who didn’t have a real prayer on stopping the puck.
The Bruins countered once again, however, with Patrice Bergeron’s league-leading fourth power-play goal of the season just two minutes and 20 seconds later. On a net-front drive, second-chance opportunity, Bergeron -- originally a gametime decision following the birth of his son, Zack, late last night -- batted the puck out of the air and evened the game up at 2-2 through one.
And of course, kept the puck as a souvenir for his son, the first member of the Bergeron family.
“There’s no word that can really describe that. It’s an amazing feeling and it’s still kind of surreal,” Bergeron, a Bruin since 2003, said of becoming a father. “I’m trying to soak everything in and spend some time with my son. So it’s been a great day I guess and I had to get focused for tonight.”
In a second period that began with the Bruins forced to kill off a five-minute charging penalty against Rinaldo, and with the Flyers making the switch to Steve Mason following an apparent injury to Neuvirth, the B’s jumped ahead with their third goal on a shorthanded Chris Kelly deflection.
They even extended their edge out to two with Jimmy Hayes’ second goal of the season, his first at home as a member of the Bruins and a real bad one to give up for Mason, at 8:49 of the second.
Boston’s 4-2 edge held through 40 minutes of play, and even looked to become a three-goal lead on a David Pastrnak blasted that a sprawling Mason appeared to have maybe caught over the goal line. But as the call on the ice of a save stood, the Flyers took it to the Black and Gold. Relentlessly.
“His second effort save [there] and we kind of had a little breather after that and said maybe that’s the turning point,” Philadelphia captain Claude Giroux admitted. “And I think the whole period after that the whole team starting playing with second effort and that’s the kind of team that we want to be. We want to work hard and the first two periods it just wasn’t the case.”
Giroux was the first to score following Mason’s big stop, and brought the Flyers within one with over 12 minutes to play. And less than three minutes later, it was Wayne Simmonds that got off the schnide with his first goal of the season, a huge one at that, to bring the B’s-Flyers to a 4-4 tie.
In overtime, it didn’t take long for a Ryan Spooner hooking penalty to put the Flyers’ always dangerous power play unit back to work, where Giroux wasted no time in burying Rask and the Bruins with a gorgeous one-timer that No. 40 and Co. didn’t have a chance on.
“He’s one of those guys that has the ability to win us a hockey game,” Julien said of Spooner. ”But he also has to get better in those areas, and again, moving your feet and being in the right position.”
With the loss, Boston is now winless in their first four home games for the first time since 2003-04, while Philadelphia’s win snapped a six-game losing streak against the Bruins. It was also Philly’s first road win against the Bruins since their Opening Night win over the Bruins on Oct. 6, 2011.
Rinaldo tossed from game following five-minute charging major
This rivalry showdown didn’t come without some nastiness, as Zac Rinaldo was given an early exit from tonight’s game by way of a game misconduct assessed on a five-minute charging penalty.
The hit, which came at the end of the first period, was a clear as day charged against Philadelphia center Sean Couturier, who was engaged in a one-on-one tie-up along the boards with Adam McQuaid. Rinaldo undoubtedly had the time and awareness to ease up on the hit and not go for a thunderous home run attempt against his former club, but such wasn’t the case upon his final stride.
In other words, it was a completely late and unnecessary hit from Rinaldo.
“I’m not even going to comment on that, honestly. Not going to comment on that hit at all,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. “There’s no place for it. So, that’s all I have to say. No place for it.”
Couturier did not return to the game following the hit, while Rinaldo, a repeat offender whose last infraction (a massive cheapshot on Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang in Jan. 2015) came with an eight-game ban, tried to do his best to explain his undeniably reckless actions following the game.
“I don’t know, I saw the puck coming around the boards and I thought he still had full control of the puck, and I just tried to deliver a body check. That was about it,” Rinaldo, who has been suspended for a total of 12 games in his NHL career (229 games), said. “I’ve got no comment about the call or anything like that. I guess I just tried to deliver a clean body check and that’s what I thought I did.
“It’s unfortunate that he’s hurt. That’s the last thing that I want to do is to hurt someone, and during the game that’s not my first priority at all. Especially someone that I know personally.”
Still, this was an easy call for the referees. Head or not, Rinaldo’s hit was simply unnecessary. The way Couturier went down, with his head nearly rocking out of his helmet, didn’t help Rinaldo’s case, either. And, of course, there’s the whole ‘This is Zac Rinaldo, repeat offender, doling out the hit’ factor.
“That’s the last thing that I wanted to do. It sucks,” the 25-year-old Rinaldo said of his early exit from the game. “I had my emotions going. I felt good, my legs were going. We had some really good time in zone, too, and I was creating plays and creating energy. It does suck, definitely.”
Rinaldo also expressed concern with the play given the fact that he met with the NHL to review what’s clean, borderline, and dirty just a week ago, and that he has a history of crossing that line.
“He was given a five and I respect the referee’s decision,” Julien said after the game.
There is no word as to whether or not Rinaldo will have a hearing with the league for the hit.
(I’d bet yes.)
Random thoughts and notes
- It was a night of tough love between Julien and 19-year-old David Pastrnak. The Czech winger, who has a simply dazzling offensive game, took some shifts off following a nightmarish shift in which he egregiously gave the puck away twice on the same shift (and lost in his stick in his skate blades). Julien replaced him with Hayes, and even Tyler Randell at points throughout the night, and stressed the importance of the second-year pro respecting the little things that come with the NHL.
“It’s about respecting the game, more than just scoring goals, and there’s a learning curve there. There’s also a respect factor there that, you’ve got to understand that there’s more to the game than just trying to be flashy,” Julien said. “He had a tough night. You’re going to see him get some better nights down the road, but he’s certainly not a single guy to point out. We were bad as a team, and a lot of guys would just go into battle and take a swing at the puck and curl the other way, and again, that’s not the way we play and it’s not the way we’re going to accept players to play on our team.”
- Don’t look now, but David Krejci is white-hot. Finishing the night with two helpers, Krejci extended his point-streak to an impressive six games (otherwise known as a season-long point-streak), and has now put up a league-leading 11 points through six games. Tonight was Krejci’s third multi-point night in the last four games, and he also now boasts career totals of five goals and 28 points in 27 games vs. Philly.
- With his assist on Boston’s first goal, Patrice Bergeron moved into sole possession of 10th place on the club’s all-time assists leaderboard, passing Bill Cowley and Milt Schmidt.
Up next
The Bruins will head to Brooklyn for the first of three 2015-16 meetings with the New York Islanders. This will be the B’s first trip to the Isles’ new home, the Barclays Center, where Billy Joel banners have been replaced with Jay-Z banners. (I’ll admit, I’ve always been more of a ‘99 Problems’ guy than a ‘Piano Man’ guy.) Boston took last year’s season series two games to one, winning their only road game against the Isles by a 5-2 final on Long Island. Boston brings a perfect road record of 2-0-0 to NY.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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