Dec 17, 2014; Saint Paul, MN, USA; Boston Bruins forward
Loui Eriksson(21) celebrates his goal with teammates during overtime against Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center. The Bruins defeated the Bruins 3-2 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports
For the third straight game, sixty minutes was not enough to determine the winner for the Boston Bruins. Thankfully, the Bruins were able to kick the monkey off their back and end a three game losing streak. The B’s earned a 3-2 win over the Minnesota Wild and proved that the Bruins were ready to come out of hibernation.
Welcome back David Krejci! The Bruins spirits were certainly elevated by the return of their top line center. The new Krejci line, with Milan Lucic and Seth Griffith weren’t exactly hot for Boston. To be fair, Krejci had missed nearly a full month due to that nagging on-again, off-again groin injury. Krejci ended up with a single shot on goal, finished with a -1 , and put in a decent amount(18:22) of ice time. He also blocked three shots.
Save by Svedberg! Niklas Svedberg earned his First Star of the Game honors with his performance against the Wild. He stopped thirty five of the thirty seven shots(.946%) on net tonight in the overtime win. Twenty of those saves were in the second period where he was the strongest Boston player on the ice. He’s now 3-4-0 with a .922 save percentage. I don’t know what was said to or by Svedberg in the locker room after the second period, but I expect he’s owed a steak dinner or two.
Six, Six, Six. All three Bruins players put in their sixth goal of the season tonight. That little odd bit of numerology did help break the three game hex the Bruins had been under.
Six for Soda, Six for Bergy... if another player gets his sixth goal, do we summon Jaromir Jagr?
— Andrew E Thompson (@Godwentwhoops) December 18, 2014
The B’s third line. While Patrice Bergeron did get a goal tonight, the rest of the scoring came from the Soderberg line. The Soderberg line earned five points tonight, with both of the B’s Swedes earning two points tonight. Carl Soderberg started the scoring for Boston early in the first period, his sixth goal was a rather solid goal through solid traffic. Loui Eriksson won the game for the Bruins by putting in his third goal in four games ninety seconds into overtime.
What the puck, refs??? Leave it the to refs to almost steal another point from Boston. Chris Kelly should have gotten the B’s third goal of the night. A deflection (not any sort of kicking motion) caused the puck to go under Niklas Backstrom‘s pads and move past the blue paint in the crease. Once again, the man on the ice made the wrong call. Thankfully, the Bruins were able to shoot themselves out of trouble thanks to Loui Eriksson.
In-and-Out. The Boston Bruins are now 16-13-3. Those thirty five points put them back in the wild card slot. The Bruins were on the outside looking in for a little while, and that may have caused them to start playing genuine desperation hockey (about time). The Bruins are still seven points behind Montreal and Detroit, and they’ll need every point from this point on.
Zach Trotman. Trotman had a Matt Bartkowski kind of game. Flashes of solid play, patches of rough work and the occasional bad mistake. (One of those mistakes led to the third period goal by Jason Pominville.) He had an assist on the Bergeron goal, and led the team with three hits. While people were lighting Trotman up on social media for the gaffe that led to the goal, he wasn’t terrible.