BOSTON –Once again the Bruins did what they had to do to earn the two points, but didn’t set any new standards in hockey aesthetics during the process. In other words, the Black and Gold won another ugly one in eking out a 2-1 overtime victory over the Buffalo Sabres at TD Garden to complete the home-and-home sweep.
In both wins over the lowly Sabres, the Bruins needed the extra session to earn the two points, and had to fight hard with physicality, strong defense and nearly perfect goaltending in order to put down a Buffalo team ready to battle. They also received good skill plays from David Krejci and David Pastrnak to set up Loui Eriksson’s goal in the first period, and some pretty special effort from Marchand in the overtime to secure his second successful penalty shot of the season.
Not much of that is going to impress fans that automatically expect more out of the Bruins, but the one-goal wins – each of the last three victories for the Bruins have been decided by just one goal –will help the entire B’s roster to develop the mental and physical toughness needed to prevail in tight games.
In other words, winning U-G-L-Y is kind of a beautiful thing.
“I thought we battled hard, both teams did. And at the end it took an overtime win to decide the outcome,” said Claude Julien. “So I like the way our guys are competing right now. Just by working the way we have and committing a little bit more we’re only going to get better.”
It’s even more vital at home on the TD Garden ice where the Bruins have been lackluster all season, and are still looking up at a .500 record.
“We talked about that. I mean, after that Toronto game, we really wanted to tighten up defensively, you know, and eliminate the mistakes and scoring chances,” said Tuukka Rask, who stopped 37-of-38 shots in the overtime win. ”These last two games we’ve done that for the most part, and been able to get the wins. Hopefully our confidence keeps building and we’re going to be able to make more plays from our end and in the offensive zone.
“Wins matter right? Hopefully we can put a couple together here at home, and get on a roll because the confidence is definitely not sky-high. You can tell just by the looks of the third period . . . but great win.”
Clearly there are still plenty of areas to improve on despite locking into third place in the Atlantic Division with 62 points, and starting to widen the gap between Boston and Detroit, Pittsburgh and New Jersey among others. The power play is in a 3-for-33 funk over the last 13 games, and didn’t look particularly confident or explosive on Saturday night.
The Joe Morrow/Dennis Seidenberg defensemen pairing fell asleep in the third period of a tied hockey game, and allowed Jamie McGinn to get behind them with a stretch pass that Seidenberg had to take a penalty on to break up. Brett Connolly failed to convert on a wide open chance in front with Buffalo goalie Robin Lehner down and out of the play, and instead shuffled the puck right into the goaltender’s chest while sprawled out in the crease.
The second period, in general, wasn’t a good 20 minutes for the Bruins, and could have been worse against a team with a greater depth and talent than Buffalo. But the Bruins coach refused to wallow in the negative on a night when two points were earned, and it will look like a flawless, beauty of an effort once the season is in the books.
“I’m not saying [the win] is prettier than anything. But when you look at the chances we had maybe it shouldn’t have been 1-1 [score] after three," Julien said. "I thought we had some great chances to score some goals, and whether it was a big save or maybe a missed opportunity on our part of it, we can improve in that area.
"I don’t think we need to be negative here all the time on the hockey club. We come back from a two-goal deficit in Buffalo, and we don’t get that many accolades. But when we blow a two-goal lead we hear about it. I’m managing my team the way I need to manage it, and that’s making sure that what we’re doing well is positive. We build on that, and what we need to fix. We definitely approach that in our room between games.”
One thing the Bruins don’t need to fix is the growing ability to salvage points in ugly, grinding games that are starting to reveal a little character, and some determination to keep pushing even when things don’t seem all that favorable for a winning result.