One win at a time.
The Boston Bruins shut out the Seattle Kraken, 2-0, on Sunday at the TD Garden for their second straight win — and shutout — of the weekend.
The B’s had defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-0, on Saturday for the first shutout.
“You can see us coming together,” Jim Montgomery said. “We’re protecting the slot, we’re sacrificing for each other.”
The Bruins started the game fast with active defense at the blue line. Pucks were to the net and the Bruins sustained offensive-zone time.
Justin Brazeau tipped in a long shot from Nikita Zadarov as the team kept bodies out front for a quick first-period lead.
As the B’s pressed, they found themselves on three power plays in the first. During the first, Brad Marchand set up Charlie Coyle along the goal line where he deked out Joey Daccord.
Seattle had a hard time getting anything going as the Bruins essentially shut down their offense in the first, limiting the Kraken to only three shots on net in the first 20 minutes. They didn’t register their first shot until 15 minutes in while shorthanded.
But then the Kraken found a little life and the Bruins didn’t match the energy from the first period in the middle frame.
“Our execution still needs to continue to grow,” Montgomery said. “Our maturity as a team, as far as game management, still needs to grow.”
It was a goaltender’s game in the second period, with timely saves on both sides.
Seattle outshot the Bruins 13 to 3 in the third, but the B’s held on — despite the Kraken ringing the post twice — for their second win of the weekend.
Here are the highlights!
First period:
Out front, Justin Brazeau tipped Nikita Zadorov’s shot from the point past Joey Daccord at 3:23 of the first period. 1-0 Bruins.
Brad Marchand saw Charlie Coyle along the goal line to feed him a pass across the paint. Coyle took his time, stick handled a bit to get Daccord to come out just enough and then slid it over the goal line at 9:57 of the first period on the power play. 2-0 Bruins.
Second period:
No goals
Third period:
No goals
Final score: 2-0 Bruins.
Game notes
- There was a common vibe postgame among the Bruins, particularly Coyle and Charlie McAvoy, that this was a mental win for them. Coyle talked about what flipped the switch after the Carolina game and trying to stay out of a funk mentally.
“Our game wasn’t turning in the right direction by any means,” Coyle said. “You want to use that next one, it’s another opportunity to get better…You don’t have to play a perfect game. There’s going to be mistakes, but let’s go hard. Let’s make our mistakes going hard.”
Coyle said the team had been quiet before games, but the last two, there’s more conversation going on before taking the ice to get the energy up. The game preparation in the locker room, he said, has more guys engaged and not just one or two players doing all the talking.
“It kind of takes everyone to kind of take on more responsibility and just create that energy,” Coyle said.
- “There’s been a lot of soul searching going on here,” Charlie McAvoy said. “A lot of people trying to find, you know, their games and myself included.”
The Bruins have tried to simplify their game, defending hard and building from there. For him, McAvoy said it’s been about changing his mindset from seeing the slump as negative to where and focus on getting through it on the other side. Tonight, that meant shooting the puck.
Montgomery said he thought tonight was McAvoy’s best game of the season. The defenseman had seven shots on net.
“I was trying to just move pucks quick, play hard defensively, be predictable,” McAvoy said. “I had opportunities to shoot the puck tonight and I had a shot first mentality and a lot of that was on the power play.”
- Defensively, this was one of the Bruins better games in a while. Besides the offense they brought, they were protecting the net slot. Looking at the numbers, the Bruins had 27 blocked shots tonight. And with so much o-zone time and being strong on the boards, there were less odd-man rushes — and less scoring opportunities for the Kraken. “We’re spending more time in the o-zone which give you more energy to defend when it does happen,” Montgomery said.
- Montgomery benched David Pastrnak for the third period. When asked postgame, he commented it was a “coach’s decision.” Charlie McAvoy and Coyle both said there’s accountability throughout the team. Coyle said Pastrnak was still vocal on the bench, but didn’t know the exact extent of why it happened.
- The Bruins will hit the road to face the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m.
