Bruins rub out Penguins again

The Bruins may be playing in front of an empty house on Causeway Street, but they’re finding a way to make their own noise so far this season.

The B’s got a pair of fourth line goals and two more from Patrice Bergeron to lift the B’s to a 4-1 victory over the Pittsburgh, sweeping the two-game set and giving the B’s their fourth Garen win in as many tries.

With Jake DeBrusk (lower body) on the shelf, coach Bruce Cassidy had to shuffle his top three lines, moving Craig Smith up to the Patrice Bergeron-Brad Marchand line, Charlie Coyle to David Krejci’s right wing and creating a line of Par Lindholm centering rookies Trent Frederic and Jack Studnicka.

But it was the one line that was untouched from the previous game on Tuesday that made its mark in the first period.

The fourth line, scoreless through the first six games of the season, finally got on the board at 6:10 of the first.

Brandon Carlo took a long distance shot that Pittsburgh goalie Tristan Jarry directed to left boards. Matt Grzelcyk, who returned to the lineup after missing two games with a lower body injury but could not finish the game, pinched down to collect it and fire toward the net. Defenseman Kevin Czuczman knocked it back into the slot right to Chris Wagner, who buried it past Jarry for his first of the year.

But the Penguins evened it at 15:03. Brad Marchand could not corral a loose puck along the left boards in the defensive zone and Bryan Rust was able to dish it back to Cody Ceci at the point. Ceci cut to his left, walked into the high slot and beat Jaroslav Halak to the blocker side.

But the B’s regained the advantage before the period was out, and again it was the fourth line that scored. Anders Bjork, struggling for much of the young season, had helped to draw a Pittsburgh early in the period and figured greatly in the B’s second goal. He rushed the puck down the left wing but was forced wide and behind the net. He eventually ended up back near the blue line and bounced shot that hit Sean Kuraly’s left leg and deflected past Jarry with 1:07 left in the period.

Each team had one fruitless power-play in the first the B’s held a 9-6 shot advantage through the opening 20 minutes.

For whatever reason, the top line wasn’t clicking well with Smith riding the right wing, so Cassidy flipped Coyle and Smith and, as luck would have it, Bergeron cashed in on the first shift with Coyle. From the high slot, Coyle’s pass for Grzelcyk moving down the left wing was just off the mark, but the defenseman gathered it and fired it toward Bergeron, who eventually flipped backhander past Jarry at 8:13.

Smith very nearly scored himself with his new linemates Krejci and Nick Ritchie, but Jarry denied him with a pad save.

The B’s took a couple of penalties in the second half of the second, but they were up to the task of killing them off. They very nearly got a another shorthanded goal in the waning seconds on the kill when Kuraly set up Bjork for a one-timer in the high slot, but Jarry was able to get his blocker on it.

Bergeron gave the B’s a three-goal cushion at 1:40 of the third, converting a Marchand pass into one of his patented tip jobs from the bumper on a power-play.

From that point on, the outcome was never in doubt.

 

 

 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3t5BL69