Jake DeBrusk’s pair lifts Bruins to victory

Jake DeBrusk entered Sunday’s game well off his pace of the 27 goals he scored last year and, for most of the first period Bruins’ matchup against the Buffalo at the Garden, he found himself on the bench.

But by early in the third period, it looked like DeBrusk had gotten the message. With Buffalo’s Johan Larsson serving a double minor, DeBrusk broke a 1-1 tie with two power-play goals just 18 seconds apart. First, DeBrusk tipped a nice Steven Kampfer feed past Linus Ullmark and then Ullmark coughed up a bad shortside goal to DeBrusk for the Bruins winger’s 11th of the season and a 3-1 lead.

The B’s hung on for a 3-2 victory.

The Sabres, still trying to remain relevant in Eastern Conference race, fought back and got to within a goal on a delayed call. It appeared Tuukka Rask had snared a puck to start the penalty kill, but it dropped out his glove and Curtis Lazar banged home the loose puck.

From there, it was white knuckle time, especially when Brett Ritchie took an offensive zone tripping penalty with 4:09 remained, but the B’s survived and DeBrusk’s softy stood up as the game-winner.

While it seemed like just last week that the Bruins were mired in a slump — and it was — they nonetheless came into the game on a six-game point streak (3-0-3) with wins over the Capitals and the these Sabres in their last two games. But they didn’t exactly put their best foot forward in their endeavor to make it three Ws in a row.

In the first period of their return engagement on the second half of the home-and-home with Buffalo, the B’s did not spend enough time in the Sabres’ zone, took a couple of penalties and managed only two shots on net. Fortunately for them, one of them went in for David Pastrnak’s 29th goal of the year.

Collecting a loose puck in his own end, Patrice Bergeron made a smart play up the left wall to spring Brad Marchand and Pastrnak for a 2-on-1. Marchand held it just long enough to make any resistance goalie Linus Ullmark could muster hopeless and Pastrnak buried it into the mostly open net at 12:39, snapping a five-game goal-less streak.

Thanks to the penalties, the Sabres held a 7-2 shot advantage but most of them were kept to the outside. An exception came on the first Buffalo power-play (for too many men) when a puck slipped through Tuukka Rask’s pads but Bergeron was there to prevent it from crossing the line. And a shot that didn’t count among the seven was one their best scoring chance. With Chris Wagner in the box for tripping, the Sabres’ rookie sniper Victor Olofsson had an open shot from the right circle, but he pinged the bar behind Rask and the puck bounced out of play

Rask wasn’t so lucky in the second period, however, and the Sabres were able to tie it at 6:37. With Matt Grzelcyk jumping into the play in the Sabres’ zone, Charlie Coyle covered for him at the right point but then tried to step up to play the puck. Marcus Johansson beat him to it and pushed it up to Sam Reinhart for a 2-on-1 with defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen. It appeared as though Rask made a terrific save, but the puck trickled behind him. As Zdneo Chara tried to stuff it back under his pad, Rask’s backward momentum knocked the puck over the goal line to even it up.

The B’s got three power plays of their own in the second, but they couldn’t do anything with them. In fact, Rask was forced to make an excellent stop on Rasmus Asplund when he broke in alone on a shorthanded bid on the second PP.

The Sabres held a 19-13 shot advantage and were the better team through two periods. To make matters worse, the Bruins were down to five defensemen after Connor Clifton left the game with an upper body injury. But the teams were still knotted at 1-1 going into the third.

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