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Talking Points: Boston Bruins Punch Clock For Solid Minny Win

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1 year ago

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Here are the Talking Points for the Boston Bruins 5-2 win over the Minnesota Wild at the Excel Energy Center in Minnesota.

GOLD STAR: David Pastrnak wasn’t dominant by any means but made certain that the Boston Bruins were not going to lose. Pastrnak finished with a pivotal goal on the power play where he showed a little adjustment that he’s making to move and find an open shooting lane for a wrist shot rather than ripping away one-timers from the dot. Pastrnak scored his first PP goal in 23 games dating back to Jan. 22 to help push Boston through a competitive game in Minnesota, and he also helped set up David Krejci’s game-winning goal that was the result of some strong old-fashioned work from the Czech Mates lines. Pastrnak finished with a goal and two points in 15:56 of ice time, six shots on net and nine shot attempts in a strong overall performance from No. 88. The PP goal was a beauty and solid proof that Pastrnak is constantly making adjustments in his game.

BLACK EYE: Rough day for Matt Dumba. A minus-2 rating, zero shots on net and two giveaways in over 20 minutes of ice time and he had a goal wiped off the board when the Boston Bruins challenged that the play was offside. Dumba was far from alone as Oskar Sundqvist and Frederick Gaudreau both finished a minus-3 for the day and the Wild had two goals taken off the board by Boston Bruins coach’s challenges that the play was offside. So the linesmen (Scott Cherrey, Ben O’Quinn) were pretty bad on Saturday afternoon too, and the B’s video coaches were given the well-earned game puck after the victory.

TURNING POINT: Minnesota had a strong first period and was leading 1-0 in the closing few minutes, and it looked like they might go into the first intermission with a lead. But instead, the Boston Bruins answered with a solid, well-executed play as Patrice Bergeron eyed Jake DeBrusk coming in late on the line change and fed him as the late trailer. DeBrusk did the rest burying a wrist shot to the top corner and that gave the Boston Bruins some life and energy, and a tied hockey game, as the two teams entered the dressing rooms. That set the B’s up for a strong second period where they began pulling away from Minnesota.

HONORABLE MENTION: Patrice Bergeron made the big plays when they mattered. He fed Jake DeBrusk for Boston’s first goal toward the end of the third period and he scored late in the third period to give Boston some breathing room when they needed it. It was Brad Marchand (3 assists), who wheeled behind the net and fed Bergeron in the slot for the ripped one-timer for his 25th goal of the season. Bergeron finished with a goal and two points, a team-leading plus-3 rating and won 12-of-21 faceoffs in a strong, strong game for that line overall with Brad Marchand racking up the three apples as well. Bergeron also passed 50 points in a season for the 14th time in his NHL career, a staggering accomplishment.

BY THE NUMBERS: 23 – the number of games that David Pastrnak had gone without a power play goal before striking for one against Minnesota. He’d gone almost two without scoring a PP goal dating back to a Jan. 22 win over the Sharks.

QUOTE TO NOTE: “We haven’t had a lot of games lately where we played our way and really consistently through 60 minutes, and I thought we did a good job of that [against Minnesota]. There were no big letdowns at all through the game and when we needed to come up big, we did. We kept pushing and that’s why we’ve been good all year.” –Brad Marchand to NESN on a very strong workmanlike win against the Wild.

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