Jan 23 2013; New York, NY, USA; New York Rangers left wing
Taylor Pyatt(14) shoots and scores on Boston Bruins goalie
Tuukka Rask(40) during the second period at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports
The Bruins go to MSG with hopes to stay ahead of the curve and go 3-0-0, unfortuantley those hopes came to end with a heartbreaking 3-4 OT loss to the Rangers.
From struggles on the powerplay to bad officiating, factor after factor but the Bruins in a downward spiral from the start of this game. Marian Gaborik put 2 by Rask in the first period and the Rangers went up 2-0, the Bruins came back with 2 goals from Brad Marchand and Milan Lucic on the powerplay and even strength respectively. Taylor Pyatt scored to make it 3-2 and Nathan Horton found his timing and tied it at 3 a piece, Gaborik then went for the hat-trick with the overtime winner 27 seconds in to the OT period with an amazing pop-up knock in.
The Bruins continue to struggle hard on the powerplay, Brad Marchand’s goal marks the first Bruins powerplay goal this season and it was sloppy at best, a shot from Dougie Hamilton and a tip by Marchand put the B’s on the board. The Bruins went 1/6 during the game but the penalty kill remained effective for Boston. With shaky officiating being the enemy for the Bruins most of the game, the great penalty kill helped in the long run, but with continual struggles on the powerplay what comes next for Boston?
Rask and Herink Lundqvist dueled each other incredibly well, a highlight being Rask’s sprawling snow angle save toward the end of the third period. Despite allowing 4 goals, Rask is still showing promise of being a starting goalie on this team. If anyone is at fault here, I’d point the blame directly at the rest of the team on the ice. The defence (while having several flashes of brilliance during the game, especially from Hamilton.) bobbled the puck several times and were incredibly uneasy both on the offence blue line and during the game in general. The forwards had tremendous pressure but very little was clicking in this game, hands were moving faster than legs and the whole team seemed to be out of sync with one another. While Horton is getting his timing back and Tyler Seguin is looking more than impressive, this isn’t enough to give the B’s the lift they need to become the team to beat this year.
I don’t have a single doubt that the Bruins will be able to rebound from this and be able to rebound from this shaky play by the end of this month but with a game against the Isles right around the corner, they need to be able to work on their issues and find their chemistry again. If it means Claude has to shake up the lines heavily, then by all means the man must do what works, but the Bruins cannot afford to keep up their sloppy finish on the powerplay and need to figure one another out if they want to be able to keep up a fight at even strength.