Boston Bruins: B’s Strike Oil in Edmonton

The Boston Bruins won their 7th straight game in Edmonton last night against the Oilers. Going into the match Edmonton was the only team Boston hadn’t played this season and has now played and beat every team in the league at least once.

The game started off shaky when Connor McDavid found his way to a wide-open spot on the ice and Leon Draisaitl skipped a shot over to his stick and put one past Bruins’ goalie Jeremy Swayman. to put them up 1-0. But 13 seconds later, Tomas Nosek put one past Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner to tie the game up. The game’s physicality was undeniable. Both teams took turns beating each other and the shot totals for the first period were pretty low because of it. Forward Nick Foligno was able to net a leading goal at 15 minutes in the first. The Bruins would go into the intermission with a lead.  Boston was able to edge out a shot advantage 10-7.

The second period became the game. McDavid knotted the game up faking out Swayman in the process. That was his 50th goal of the season marking the Edmonton captain’s first career 50-goal season. shame that Edmonton is just letting their best players waste their skills with that roster.

A little while later, Pavel Zacha showed the level of effort this team has been willing to give all season. He dove for a rebound to poke the puck past Skinner for the go-ahead goal which would be the game-winner.

The Oilers had the opportunities to get back in it but Boston had woken up by then and it was just a bunch of back and forth in the third. The game ends 3-2 to put the Bruins at 46-8-5

Key Takeaways

Coach Jim Montgomery was switching up the lines during the game to see what he could throw at Edmonton who was able to keep the main stars from getting into their offensive rhythm but ultimately the deeper team prevailed. Boston showed that they can score up and down the lineup and even though some Oiler fans think that their team is a contender they surely are not. You cannot let your star player have a 2 goal game and lose because your bottom lines are not able to keep the puck out of your net.

David Pastrnak did get an assist but that was all of the noise coming out of the top 6 forwards tonight. The depth for this team really played well and won this game for the Bruins.

Taylor Hall did not suit up for the game because he went back to Boston with a lower-body injury. Coach Montgomery says it probably isn’t anything serious and it was more of a precautionary move with the team playing the second half of their back-to-back tonight in Calgary.

The Bruins’ new additions have made a good impact in their first couple of games with their new team. Garnet Hathaway was setting up some good offense and doing his best job of getting in the heads of the Oilers’ defense. While Dmitry Orlov seems to have seamlessly integrated into the defense. He assisted on 2 out of the three goals in yesterday’s game and recorded 3 hits and 2 takeaways.

Up Next

The League’s best team heads to Calgary to take on the Flames later today to conclude their road trip. I’m looking for the team to go undefeated in the road trip and extend their streak to 8 wins.