Boston Bruins: A Night Of Firsts In Colorado
The Boston Bruins played to their potential last night as they earned their first win of the season in a 6-2 drubbing of the Colorado Avalanche. It was a night of first as five different Bruins scored their first goals of the season. It was also Tyler Randell‘s first NHL game, where he earned his first goal in the second period, which ended up being the game winner for Boston.
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“I was just trying to play strong in the corners and play positional, get to the front of the net and cause a screen, pick up rebounds,” said Randell. “And [Jimmy Hayes] threw it on net and it squeaked through, so it was a great start to the game.”
“I knew I tipped it — after that, I kind of blacked out, I didn’t know what happened,” said after the game. “But it was a great feeling and great to get it out of the way. It was definitely what you dream of, from day one, when you’re three years old, playing mini sticks, firing the ball around — you pretend you’re in the NHL, and the chance finally came and never expected this to happen in the first game, but pretty excited.”
Randell’s AHL linemate Tommy Cross also played in his first NHL game last night. He played a strong, relatively error-free game last night, logging 14:25 on the ice.
Claude Julien was pleased with the young players performance last night. It was the first time this season Claude let the newer players run the show, and the new blood in Boston didn’t let anyone down in the Mile High city.
“I think the focus and the determination of our group was really good,” said B’s bench boss Claude Julien after the 6-2 win. “We were giving up too many goals and that we had to [re-establish] the part of our game without the puck. I mentioned [to the team] that we seemed to have good starts in every game so far this year and that couldn’t change. But what had to change — we had to extend our 20 minute game to a 60 minute game and for the most part, I was pretty happy with that.”
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Jonas Gustavsson also got in his first game in a Bruins uniform last night, and he did not disappoint. While he did let in a soft goal later in the game, the B’s supported him throughout the sixty minutes. Gustavsson went 20-for 22 last night, and was instrumental in the B’s first win.
“I felt pretty good,” he said. “Guys helped me a lot and other than that last goal when I lost concentration a little bit and cheated — I thought he was going to pass — other than that, I felt pretty good and the guys helped me a lot. As a team, we’ve just got to know what we did. We kept it simple and played solid defensively and that gave us a lot of scoring chances so I think it goes hand in hand — if you have a good defense, you’re going to get a lot of offense, so we’ve just got to stick with what we’re doing and we’ll be fine.”
While it may be too soon to tell, it looks like the young blood in Boston helped put out the dumpster fire that was the start of the Bruins 2015-16 season.