Bruins lose to Canadiens in Montreal

MONTREAL — The Bruins escaped with two points on Monday against the Penguins when they really didn’t deserve them.

But nearly a century of hockey history will tell you that anything the B’s have gotten in Montreal they’ve had to earn. And against the Canadiens, a bad first period and an average second period were not going to get it done. The Habs snapped the B’s six-game winning steak and 10-game point streak with a 5-4 victory at the Bell Centre Tuesday night.

But as badly as the B’s played at times, they easily could have gotten points out of this one, too.

Chasing the game all night, the Bruins tied it up for a second time at 3:03 of the third period at 4-4 when Carey Price lost the location of the puck behind the net and Sean Kuraly slipped it home when Price was looking on the wrong side of the net.

It appeared the B’s took their first lead of the game at 5:23 when Zach Seynshyn fed Charlie Coyle for a tap-in. But after a lengthy video review, the goal was taken off the board when it was ruled Coyle entered the zone a hair off side kicked it up to himself.

And then the Habs grabbed the lead at 9:06 when defenseman Ben Chiarot beat Tuukka Rask under the glove arm form the left circle.

It was not a great night for Tuukka Rask, who had a couple he would have liked back.

With the B’s at the top of the Atlantic Division standings and coming off a game the previous night, the Habs came out flying like you would have expected them to do. And it took them all of 1:13 to take advantage of the situation, as well as a fortuitous bounce.

Jeff Petry carried the puck in deep and tried to center it to Joel Armia. The pass missed its mark, but it bounced off Armia’s skate and out into the high slot, where Victor Mete stepped into a slap shot that beat Rask.

The B’s eventually pushed back. Torey Krug hit a post in one promising sequence. Senyshyn, the 2015 first round draft pick who has not been able to make his mark at the NHL level or even much of one in the AHL, had been called up earlier in the day. He was able to use his speed on a net drive that caused Mete to hook him at 14:49.

It took just six seconds for David Pastrnak to score his 15th, a one-timer past Carey Price from his usual spot in the left circle, extending his point streak to 13 games. Krug also assisted on the goal, giving him 300 for his career. It looked like that was good enough to allow the B’s to survive the dreaded first period on the second half of the back-to-back.

That, however, was not the case. The Habs regained the lead less than a minute later and then doubled it quickly after that.

First, Brendan Gallagher made a nifty neutral zone backhand pass to spring Tomas Tatar for an odd-man rush. Tatar kept it himself and beat Rask to the short, glove side.

Then the speedy Paul Byron made it 3-1 at 17:16, just 31 seconds after the Tatar goal. Brandon Carlo made a nice poke check of Artturi Lehkonen high in the Bruins zone, but the puck never left the zone. Byron swooped in to take it off the blue line and motored down the left wing, beating Rask between the pads.

The B’s didn’t give any more indication that this would be their night early in the second period than they did in the first period. They took two early penalties, which they killed off successfully, and they didn’t get their first shot on net until 7:17 of the period.

Luckily for them, that shot went in. Connor Clifton grabbed a Montreal clear attempt in the middle of the blue line, burst free from a tangle of bodies and beat Price with a wrist shot from the bottom of the right circle for his first goal of the season.

Coach Bruce Cassidy then started mixing his lines, double shifting Pastrnak, dropping Danton Heinen to the fourth line and benching Brett Ritchie.

But at 18:13, the B’s line that was unaffected by the changes evened the score. Charlie McAvoy flipped a puck into a cluster of bodies in front where Charlie Coyle was wrestling with a couple of Habs. The loose puck dropped to Anders Bjork, who tucked it under Price to make it 3-3.

The B’s could not get out of the period tied, however. On a harmless looking shot, Mete scored from a good distance, and the replay showed how. Zdeno Chara checked Nate Thompson into Rask, who had little chance on it. The goalie argued, but there was nothing he nor the B’s could do about it. It was self-inflicted, and for the second night in a row they went into the third period down 4-3.

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from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2Nktrwv