Prior to Friday night’s game, it was announced that Patrice Bergeron would miss his first game of the season with a lower-body injury for the Boston Bruins. It is widely thought that the injury occurred in Thursday night’s 5-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Arena.
Without their captain, the Bruins moved Charlie Coyle to center the top-line with David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand, while shuffling things around in the bottom-six. Without Bergeron, the offense struggled in a 6-4 loss, especially the first line, but who scored the Bruins’ first goal is not only surprising, but the shot he took was even more stunning.
Defensemen Steven Kampfer provided the Black and Gold with their only highlight of the night, early in the first period with his second goal of the season.
Taylor Hall with a clean zone entry — and he sets up a goal for Steven Kampfer.
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) April 23, 2021
1-0 Bruins. pic.twitter.com/6HEtVP4vtM
What stood out about this goal was not only the perfect shot by Kampfer, but the good zone entry from Taylor Hall. It was one of the better zone entries of the night for the Bruins. Also what was good about the play was the shot. Kampfer picked the inside of the post on Buffalo rookie goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
Buffalo scored four unanswered goals following Kampfer’s goal before Tuukka Rask was lifted in the third period in favor of Jaroslav Halak to get him some work as he is returning from the COVID-19 protocols list.
The Bruins, however, didn’t go quietly. Third-period goals from Nick Ritchie, Kevan Miller, and Taylor Hall both assisted by Kampfer gave the Bruins hope at the end of the game.
Ritchie stuffed home the rebound of a Kampfer shot from the point and Miller took a pass from Kampfer in the neutral zone, skated into the Sabres zone, and beat Luukkonen five-hole. Hall’s centering pass deflected off of Buffalo defensemen Rasmus Ristolainen and into the net.
The loss snapped the Bruins’ six-game win streak and the New York Rangers beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1, Friday night to climb within six points of the Black and Gold for the fourth and final playoff berth. On the flip side, Boston was unable to gain ground on the three teams ahead of them and remain four points out of first place.