Bruins 0 – Canadiens 3
After a very gritty game against Philadelphia, and no I did not choose the adjective gritty because that’s the name of the Flyers mascot. It was a hard-nosed game with a lot of hits and a few gloves dropped. The Bruins were able to come out on top and now play host to longtime rival, the Montreal Canadiens. Whenever the Habs and the B’s (two original 6 teams) face off it is must watch hockey. These teams always seem to play their games around physicality. Maybe it’s all the stories that get guys going, or maybe they really just don’t like each other. Either way it was another exciting matchup worth watching.
Montreal was able to get on the board first in this one. Just about halfway through the first period Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher was able to get the puck past Tuukka on a short side shot right at the legs of the Boston net minder. This is now the second time this year that Tuukka has let in a week goal like this and he should not let it happen again. He is way too good of a goalie to let in the weak goal and put added pressure on his team.
Max Domi got the 2nd goal for the Habs only a few minutes later after corralling a rebound and whiffing on an attempt which worked in his favor as it drew Tuukka out of his net. Domi was able to lift the puck on his second attempt over Tuukka, top shelf for the 2-0 lead.
There wasn’t much going on for the Bruins in this one as the Carey Price was able to stifle the Boston offense and take the first game of the season between these two storied rivals.
Boston 3 – Hurricanes 2
After a tough loss to the Canadiens, the Bruins took the trip down to Raleigh, North Carolina to take on the Hurricanes who are playing much better than people expected them to, especially after not resigning longtime goalie Cam Ward, a Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe winner.
The Bruins needed to get a bounce back win and that they did. Patrice Bergeron was doing it all on Tuesday night. The four-time Selke Trophy winner was all over the defensive front. As well as setting up all three goals on the night. Brad Marchand had his first multi goal game of the season and hopefully jump starts his goal scoring for the year as he has been racking up the assists, but not finding the back of the net as often as in the past. However, he scored two beauties, one to tie the game at 2 and the other to put the B’s in the lead for the rest of the game.
Dougie Hamilton made his presence known on the ice when he scored on the power play for the Hurricanes and I mention this, because Dougie got his start in Boston playing for the Bruins for the first three years of his career. He was a promising young rookie out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, but he just never really got up to the expectations that were set for him in Boston.
After taking the lead early in the 3rd period, Jaroslav Halak buckled in and kept the Bruins in the lead and brought them the win. This guy as a backup is, so far, having a much better year than Tuukka Rask and now that we are entering November, we could see a lot more of Halak and a lot less of Tuukka. I hate to say it, but the truth is something is up with Tuukka’s game and if he doesn’t figure it out very soon he will not only lose his starting job (if he hasn’t already) but he may find himself on the trade block towards the deadline.
Team Updates
We had a little good news, bad news on the injury front this week. The good news is that Torey Krug is officially back and good to go as he played in his first game of the season in that win down in Carolina. It is great to have him back to help that defense with point production. The timing of his return could not have been any better too. The bad news for Bruins fans is that Charlie McAvoy was placed on the IR after suffering an injury back on October 18th against the Oilers. The team hasn’t disclosed what his injury is, which they seem to do quite often, and it really scares me that it could be something with his heart again like last year.
For those of you that don’t know, Charlie missed about 3 weeks last season after having a minor surgery on his heart. He was battling supraventricular tachycardia or SVT, which basically causes heart palpitations at random times. This isn’t anything that is dangerous towards his health, but it does cause severe symptoms that he had been dealing with since his time at BU.
I guess the only thing we can really do is sit and wait to hear about his condition and hope that it isn’t anything that will cause him to miss a large chunk of time. As for now, it really turned out to be perfect timing for the return of Torey Krug, but there is a chance that they rushed him back after the injury to Charlie.
The Week Ahead
We don’t see the Bruins back in action until Saturday the 3rd down in Nashville to take on a very good Predators team led by P.K. Subban (who the Bruins are very familiar with). They then head back to Boston to host former Bruin, Tyler Seguin and the Dallas Stars on Monday night. Continuing a 4 game home-stand next Thursday, the Bruins will be up against the Vancouver Canucks a team they recently lost to in overtime. It should be a good week for the boys as they have the potential to take a total of 6 points and possibly climb out of 3rd place in the Atlantic Division.
Videos courtesy of NHL.com