Bruins, Rask Shuts Out Kings 3-0
Rask Earns First Shutout of the Season
Tuukka Rask, posted his first shutout of the season, helping the Boston Bruins blank the Los Angeles Kings 3-0. On a night when the Bruins were without Zdeno Chara, Gregory Campbell, or Tim Thomas, they were able to plug those holes and not miss a beat. Meanwhile, the Kings were playing their first game after firing Head Coach Terry Murray yesterday. Head over to Rink Royalty for the latest on the Kings coaching situation.
Aside from Rask, Steve Kampfer and Zach Hamill jumped into the line up and filled in nicely. Hamill, played especially well creating the first goal of the game with a turnover in the offensive zone and then made a beautiful cross-crease pass to Rich Peverley for his fifth goal of the year. The Bruins out-shot the Kings 12-8 in the first period, a total that was helped by the 3 Boston power plays.
The Bruins extended the lead to 2-0 off a face-off in the offensive zone. Patrice Bergeron won the draw cleanly back and Brad Marchand snapped a wrist shot between the legs of a Kings defender, off Jonathan Quick‘s pad and in. It was the Bruins who were short-handed throughout the period as the Kings had 3 Power Plays, at one point having a short 2-man advantage. Obviously, the B’s killed them off , but they really shut the Kings down during these Power Plays as Rask played his best game of the year. Rask was in position all night, looking cool, calm, and collected throughout the game.
Expecting the Kings to come out firing in the third period, the Bruins were able to keep their composure and limit second chance opportunities. Although the Kings had 20 shots in the final frame, many of them were from the outside and very few produced rebounds. The B’s seemingly put the game away early in the third on Marchand’s second goal of the game 5:35 into the second. Again off the face-off, Bergeron dove to knock the puck below the dot, where Marchand picked it, moved left to right along the goal line, and got Quick to commit before sending a backhander under his glove for the 3-0 lead.
3 stars
1. Tuukka Rask
2. Brad Marchand
On Tap
The Bruins travel to Ottawa tomorrow night for divisional battle. The Bruins won their only meeting thus far 5-3 back on November 1st, the first win of their unbeaten November.