The Boston Bruins once again performed well on the road as they defeated the Florida Panthers 3-1. The Black and Gold remain perfect on the road this season. The Bruins power play squad went 2-for-2 and is showing the league how dangerous it is to give the Black and Gold the man advantage. After dropping the first three games of the season, the B’s have earned eleven out of a possible twelve points and a turning into one of the hottest teams in the league.
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David Krejci‘s point streak is still going. He’s put up points in all nine games for the Black and Gold, and earned an assist on Zdeno Chara‘s power play goal. Krejci is still the Bruins point leader with fifteen. He’s still on pace to have a one hundred plus point season, and remains one of the B’s best overall players.
Tuukka Rask has certainly been one of the best bounce back stories for the Bruins. In his first four games, a shaky Rask let in 22 goals, making one of the worst starting goalies in the league. In the last two games, Rask has let in a single goal. Rask continues to shave down the numbers as he attempts to regain his Vezina level status. In the last two games, he’s brought down his goals against average by over a point (now a less horrendous 3.29), and brought up his save percentage by five percent (an almost passable.889%)
Rask (who surprisingly wasn’t awarded any star of the game) did his best work in the third period. He stopped all 17 shots and did an outstanding job in the final 2:03 of the game. Brad Marchand after having a great tw0 goal game was assessed a match penalty for a hit on Dmitry Kulikov that send the Panthers’ defenseman into the boards to come up bleeding and spitting teeth. This put Rask on yet another two player disadvantage and he came up huge for the B’s again.
Puck Prose
Brad Marchand will likely receive some sort of punishment from the Department of Player Safety. Marchand has had problems with the league in the past over poor choices, and this may cost the Bruins one of their power play specialists as they take on the Tampa Bay Lightning tomorrow night.
Zdeno Chara got his first goal of the season as well, giving the captain a power play goal of his own. Adam McQuaid got one past Roberto Luongo as well, but his goal was waived off to possible goalie interference with Loui Eriksson. (Claude Julien should have challenged the goal, he’s 0-2 for the challenge so far this season, and he might as well have gone for the hat trick.)
The Bruins are now 5-3-1 and are tied for third place in the Atlantic Division. If the Bruins are able to defeat the Lightning tomorrow, they would be catapulted into second place in the division behind the Montreal Canadiens. For a team that a lot of people had given up hope on before the season even started, the Boston Bruins are roaring their way back up the standings.