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It would have been a fitting theme of last month’s Boston Bruins group to utterly deflate themselves following the go-ahead power-play goal scored by New York’s
J.T. Miller in the third period.
The goal itself was a wonky one (read as: ugly) following a set of tremendous stops from
Tuukka Rask, and came on a goaltender interference penalty to Boston’s
Brad Marchand that was simply enhanced by what the Bruins felt was a complete dive by New York netminder
Henrik Lundqvist. But instead of sulking their way to a home loss, the Black and Gold rebounded with goals from
Ryan Spooner and
David Krejci, and skated off with their season-high fifth straight victory behind a 4-3 final over the Rangers in a Black Friday matinee at TD Garden.
“We’re finding a way to win games,” B’s captain
Zdeno Chara said. “The word giving up is non-existent in this locker room. We know that any time are in a game we have a chance to come back or win the game; we just keep pushing forward and we have to overcome some challenges that we are having. Either it’s playing, obviously, good teams and you’re not always going to feel great every night but you’ve just got to dig deep and play hard and leave it out there and good things will happen.”
The B’s opened up their annual Black Friday matinee with
Patrice Bergeron’s change-up wrister through Lundqvist 14:15 into the first period, good for his 8th strike of the season.
Lundqvist and the Rangers escaped the first in a one-goal hole behind some stellar stops from No. 30, which included several second-chance opportunities from Boston’s net-front guys in an 11-of-12 period from the all-world netminder, and responded with a strong pushback in the middle frame.
Oscar Lindberg came with the equalizer just 2:10 into the second, while
Rick Nash put the Rangers up by one just 3:05 after Lindberg’s strike. Both of New York’s goals came with questionable positioning from the Bruins’
Dennis Seidenberg, a player that’s seemingly always struggled against a quick-thinking Ranger attack, and overall subpar play from Boston’s five-man unit.
Put to the power play 8:06 into the second period behind an instigator penalty to
Dylan McIlrath for his jump-in on
Matt Beleskey following a hard hit to
Derek Stepan in the New York zone, the Bruins answered behind
Brett Connolly’s fifth of the season.
“I just think he didn’t think I was gonna hit him,” Beleskey, who finished the night with five hits in just over 12 minutes of time on ice, said of his hit on Stepan. “He kind of didn’t brace himself. I didn’t take any extra strides or anything like that. Maybe, maybe, a little bit late. But he saw me coming, I came from the front. So it’s unfortunate that – I think I just saw he’s injured, so hopefully he’s all right.”
The Rangers, however, didn’t agree.
“In our opinion, it was a late hit,” Rangers coach
Alain Vigneault said. “More than a second, and he was a couple of feet away from the boards. So we’ll have to wait and see. I remember Aaron Rome in this building, 0.6 seconds late, getting suspended four games in the Stanley Cup Final, so [it will] be interesting to see. [Derek Stepan] broke some ribs, so he’ll be out indefinitely.”
(I gotta say that it’s pretty dumb, almost insulting to everyone involved actually, to actually compare Beleskey on Stepan to Aaron Rome on Nathan Horton and think you have a point, but that’s just me.)
But in a 2-2 tie, the Rangers jumped ahead by way of the aforementioned Miller power-play goal, which came with a ton of criticism from the B’s room in regards to Lundqvist’s sell job of the contact.
“I mean he must have gotten hit with a cement block the way he went down - I didn’t know I was that strong. But you know it’s tough when it seems like they don’t call goalies on that one, maybe they should,” Marchand said of Lundqvist’s on-ice theatrics to put the Rangers on the man advantage. “You see the replay and it’s pretty blatant how quick he went down. I was looking for the sniper upstairs.”
It’s clear that there was contact between Marchand and Lundqvist -- maybe enough for a penalty, even -- but there is absolutely no doubt that Lundqvist threw his head backwards to enhance the whistle.
The B’s found their revenge with two goals, though, the game-tying marker from Spooner and the eventual game-winner scored by Krejci with just 1:43 left in the third period.
“I think this was the second time, in preseason [Henrik] Lundqvist did the same thing. I know he does some acting on the side but I don’t think it needs to be on the ice,” B’s coach Claude Julien said. “Referees are there to protect goaltenders and they should. Goaltenders shouldn’t take advantage of referees and you know, you may think it's a good play for his team to get a power play, but we’re all trying to get that out of our game. If my guys do that I’m going to address it.
“I’m not hypocritical about that. We’re trying to improve the game here. More than anything else I is the way we bounced back, whether it’s karma or character whatever it is, I liked our effort tonight.”
It wasn’t pretty, but the Black and Gold will take the two points, and with wins in five consecutive contests, Julien is beginning to understand the identity of his group, his ninth different B’s squad.
“This is a hard-working team, I think the attitude of this group is they want to do well,” Julien, who has made the playoffs in all but one of his previous eight years in the Hub, noted. “I think their intentions are good and when they go out there and compete like they did tonight it’s a lot of fun to coach these guys because there is a mixture of veterans, there is a mixture of leadership and also a mixture of new faces and young players as well. There’s a lot that has changed in our group and just to see it grow is what’s fun for a coach as long as you’re heading in the right direction.”
The Bruins are back in action on Wednesday night in Edmonton.
NOTES: The Bruins won their season-best fifth game in the a row today, it is their 15th win streak of five games or more under coach Claude Julien… New York’s third period power-play goal snapped a streak of 17 consecutive kills for the Bruins… Boston forward Jimmy Hayes snapped a nine-game scoreless stretch with an assist in the win… Today was the Bruins’ 266 straight sellout (this figure includes both regular season and playoff games) at TD Garden.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Boston Chapter of the Pro Hockey Writers Association since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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