Bruins come back to beat Sabres in OT

For at least one game, and against an inferior opponent, Bruce Cassidy’s line machinations worked for his Bruins.

It wasn’t always pretty, and they needed a furious third-period comeback to get to overtime where they would win it, but the B’s got goals from all three of their new top-nine line combinations before Charlie Coyle scored just 34 seconds into OT to lift the B’s to a 4-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres at the Garden. It was the Bruins’ first game in 16 days.

Whether or not the new lines have staying power to deliver the balanced scoring the team so desperately needs remains to be seen. Cassidy and his staff will get more data when they get right back to it on Sunday afternoon in Detroit. But there were some promising signs in the victory that the B’s absolutely had to have as they try to get back in the playoff structure.

Nick Foligno scored his first goal as a Bruin when being in the right place finally paid off for him. Jake DeBrusk, his trade request still pending, showed the legs — dormant for too much of the last two years — to create Foligno’s goal and a couple of other chances. Taylor Hall scored the kind of goal he can score when he’s going well. And Craig Smith looked like he was ready, willing and able to take David Pastrnak’s spot with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron.

“When you get the results, you feel like you made the right decision,” said Cassidy, who reserved full judgment of the changes until he watched the game again on the flight to Detroit. “On the surface, there were some positive results. It took a little while, but two greasy goals on the net-front (Smith’s and Foligno’s) and another on a nice attack and a center-lane drive taking away the goalie’s eyes (Hall’s). And the last one was just good skill, good shot on the 3-on-3. You need that, with a little bit of a flash screen. Good for the guys. We’ll see how it works out (Sunday).”

The B’s again had to work a little harder for their goals than their opponent did. They outshot the Sabres, 41-24, but they did not get their first lead until Coyle’s goal found the back of the net. On a line change in the extra session, Brad Marchand fed Coyle from the right corner and he beat Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen from the high slot with a nice shot under the bar.

It was a nice capper after the B’s found themselves in a hole.

Facing a two-goal deficit to start the third, the B’s got one back at 3:24 from a welcome source. DeBrusk made a strong off-wing rush to the net that Luukkonen stopped but he could not control the rebound. Foligno got it on his backhand, carefully measured the room he had over the prone Luukkonen and lifted his long-awaited first goal as a Bruin into the top shelf.

The good vibes didn’t end there. Hall, who had not scored a 5-on-5 goal since the second game of the season, broke out of his own zone on a rush. As his new center Erik Haula drove to the net, Hall took the puck into the middle of the ice and tied the game on a hard wrister at 4:49.

Up until that point, the B’s were chasing the game, even though they had the better of the play.

Buffalo got on the board at 6:33 of the first. After Rasmus Dahlin kept the puck in at the left point. He got it down to Brett Murray, who came off the half board and fed Vinnie Hinostroza in the high slot. With Foligno possibly screening out front, Hinostroza was able to beat Linus Ullmark with a fairly long range shot from inside the tops of the circles.

Eventually the B’s got the legs going in the second half of the first period and momentum remained in their control to start the second period. Right off the bat, Marchand forced Jeff Skinner to take a hooking penalty on the first shift of the period. Though they did not score on the man advantage, the B’s created enough on it to keep the ball rolling and Smith evened it up at 3:47 on a gritty goal. There was nothing complicated to it. He just went to the net and was there at the top off the crease to put back the rebound of a Marchand shot to even it at 1-1.

But any momentum the B’s had seemed to vanish on the next shift when Haula, given the plum assignment of centering Hall and David Pastrnak, took an obvious holding the stick penalty in the offensive zone and the B’s had to go on the kill. They then faced a 46-second 5-on-3 when Tomas Nosek was called for tripping.

The B’s killed off both those situations, but now the Sabres were in control of the play, spending extended periods of time in the Boston zone for the first time in the game. They got their lead back at 11:32 when they refused to let the B’s top line exit the zone before Skinner made them pay on a goal off a rebound.

Then came what looked like a backbreaking goal with 48 seconds left in the second period. With Smith in the box for hooking Luukkonen on a rush that produced an open net that Connor Clifton missed, the Sabres’ Alex Tuch gave them a two-goal bulge. On a pretty feed from Peyton Krebs, who like Tuch was acquired in the Jack Eichel trade, Tuch one-timed a slot shot over Ullmark’s glove arm and it was 3-1.

But it didn’t take long in the third for the B’s to re-assert control of the play before Coyle came through with the winner.

Their two week-plus COVID-induced break behind them, the B’s are in for a lot of hockey. Not only do play again on Sunday on Motown, they play 16 games in the month of January. They need to string some wins together if they are to get back into the playoff hunt.

Saturday’s win was a decent start.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3FPm6Op