Ugly Night In Denver As Bruins Lose Game And Chara
And just when this flavor-saver filled in nicely.
Given the lack of secondary scoring (until very recently) and the fact they’re missing half of their starting D, it’s been somewhat impressive that the Bruins have managed to hang near the top of the standings a week before Thanksgiving (tied for 5th with 22 points). Thank you, Jaroslav Halak.
But chasing the top spot got a whole lot harder last night in Denver when the Bruins inexplicably lost yet another defenseman. This time it was stalwart captain Zdeno Chara who was hurt with just over a minute left in the first. Zee fucked up his left knee something ugly when his leg collided awkwardly with Carl Soderberg along the boards.
Chara finished his shift but did not return after the first intermission. The team was already playing without Charlie McAvoy, Kevan Miller, and Brandon Carlo on the back end. Losing Chara on top of that proved to be to much as the Bs watched a 3-1 lead turn into a 6-3 loss.
While the team was tight-lipped after the game, it’s not a stretch to think that Zee will be placed on the IR (out at least a week). 2015 1st round pick Jakub Zboril, already traveling with the team, will most likely make his NHL debut in Dallas tomorrow night if Carlo isn’t ready to return to the line-up. Fellow rookie Jeremy Lauzon skated 21:07 last night and has looked pretty composed out there. As for who’s down on the farm?
People can (foolishly) bitch about Chara all they want but when he’s not out there, as we saw last night, it’s a huge loss for the Bs. The team will weather the storm with what they have in-house and hope that McAvoy, Miller, and/or Carlo are back soon. Starting two rookies on D isn’t ideal but if there’s a silver lining, the Bruins will get a good look at the progression of a pair of 2015 draft picks.
In the head-to-head battle of big lines, the Colorado trio of Gabriel Landeskog-Nathan MacKinnon-Mikko Rantanen out-dueled their counterparts with 3 goals and 3 assists to just a goal and two helpers for the Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak line. For one night anyways, the Avs top unit was the best in the league.
The Bs look to get back on track with a pair of weekend tilts. Tomorrow night in Big D they take on the Stars at 8PM then head to Arizona for a Saturday night affair with the resurgent Coyotes at 8PM.
A few more buds for your Thursday bowl…
*After a bit of a slow stat, Jake DeBrusk is awake. He has 4-2–6 in his last five games and is starting to resemble that effervescent kid from last year. He scored on a sweet breakaway and on a goal-mouth tip to stake the Bs to the 3-1 lead that they eventually blew
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*Pastrnak continued his torrid pace with his 17th goal in 18 games last night, good for fourth place in the team’s 94-year history.
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*There’s also some pretty good company on this list…
*Special teams giveth, special teams taketh away. Yes, the Bs went two-outta-three on power plays last night. But they also gave up three goals in three shorthanded situations. PK discombobulation is usually pretty easy to clean up but it’s gonna be interesting to see how it fares with no Chara for a stretch.
*The Bs got bitched at the dot, 59-41. You know it’s bad when Bergeron loses 57% of his draws.
*Last night’s game was played at a pretty good pace and the game’s first whistle wasn’t blown until nearly six minutes were played. There were a handful of stretches in which the teams went a few minutes without the play being blown dead (goals may have been the biggest reason for play stopping). Jack Edwards mentioned that NESN couldn’t run a couple of commercial blocks due to the fast pace of play. Surprisingly, he didn’t make any herb/Mile High references like he is wont to do (unless I missed it).