For the first time ever, the Boston Bruins traveled to Las Vegas to play an actual hockey game. Let’s just say that could have gone a lot better.
Coming off a very impressive win against the Arizona Coyotes, the Bruins played lazy and uninspiring hockey against the newest team in the league. Facing old friend Malcolm Subban (more on him later), the Bruins didn’t challenge him with many shots, and made it a relatively easy night for the young netminder.
Overall, it was a very unsuccessful night of hockey in Vegas, and it concludes a frustrating road trip. Now let’s push all the chips into the middle of the table, and see how the cards play out, get it? It’s funny cause they played In Vegas. Now with that out of the way, on to the review.
1st Period
The opening frame was quite uneventful, in terms of offensive action. There were some good rushes and zone time from both teams, but untimely, it amounted to a 0-0 score at the end of 1. Both teams gambled on the penalty kill, but neither PP resulted in much.
The one highlight for the Bruins in the opening stanza was Brad Marchand’s awesome backcheck on another old friend Riley Smith, that shut down Smith’s shorthanded bid. But as I stated earlier, the not much in the terms of action happened in the first ending tied 0-0.
2nd Period
The choppy action continued for much of the second period, as both teams struggled to find any consistent momentum. That is until Boston College product Alex Tuch stole the puck from an unsuspecting Sean Kuraly at center ice, chipped it off the boards past Kevan Miller and sniped his first career goal short side of Tuukka Rask at 14:38 of the second period.
Moments later a scrambled Bruins defense couldn’t clean up the garbage in front of the net and Vadim Shipachyov scored his first career goal in his NHL debut to double the Knights lead to 2-0 at 17:46 of the second period. Its so nice of the Bruins to give these guys great memories in their careers they’ll never forget. The second period came to a close and the Bruins were facing a two goal deficit, could they recover in the third?
3rd Period
No, no they could not. The final frame was a continuation of the whole game, where the Bruins could get absolutely nothing going for them offensively. The Bruins took a couple penalties, where Vegas didn’t score, but it didn’t matter, the Bruins could muster nothing threatening against Subban and the Knights defense.
A scary moment happened late in the third, when a shot from another old friend Colin Miller struck Adam McQuaid in the leg and he went down hard. He was down for a while, and had to be helped off the ice by the trainer. The Bruins risked it all by pulling the goalie and with 30 seconds remaining David Pastrnak banked the puck of a Vegas player, and it went in the goal, cutting the Knights lead to one.
Bruce Cassidy said Adam McQuaid took a puck to the inside of the leg in the final minutes. Will be re-assessed over next couple days.
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) October 16, 2017
But, 17 seconds later Oscar Lindberg rolled the dice and shot the puck from his defensive zone and he hit the jackpot, giving the Knights a 3-1 lead. Shortly there after the horn sounded and the Golden Knights are victorious over the Bruins with a final score of 3-1.
Short Shifts:
- With the loss against Vegas, the Bruins finished their first road trip of the year, 1-2-0.
- Along with giving up Tuch and Shipachyov’s first career goals, they also gave former Bruin Malcolm Subban his first career win, so nice of them!
- Ryan Spooner and Adam McQuaid both left the game with injuries.
- Saint Patrice, WHERE ARE YOU? YOU ARE MISSED DEARLY!!
- The Bruins return home on Thursday to face the Vancouver Canucks.
- Golden Knights Twitter account: Not Funny