On the surface, a third straight one-goal win over a non-playoff team might not look like something worth getting too excited about. But make no mistake: The Bruins’ 2-1 overtime victory against the Blackhawks Tuesday night was a big one.
They played a great all-around game that would have been over long before overtime if not for, A) a phenomenal goaltending performance from Marc-Andre Fleury in the Chicago net, and B) a controversial (or more accurately, bad) no-goal call that was somehow upheld after a video review.
The Bruins dominated the Blackhawks. They were outshooting Chicago 35-11 through two periods and finished with a 48-20 advantage in shots and 19-4 edge in high-danger chances. Fleury was spectacular, though, repeatedly denying the Bruins on quality chances in close. According to Natural Stat Trick, he saved 2.58 goals above expected, meaning the Bruins would have been expected to score four or five goals against an average goaltending performance.
Instead of getting frustrated and eventually making mistakes, the Bruins kept battling and eventually broke through with a hard-fought goal early in the third period to take a 1-0 lead. Just after a Boston power play expired, Taylor Hall, Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron were all jamming at a loose puck in front of Fleury before Bergeron eventually whacked it in. In a scary moment, Hall took an inadvertent skate blade to the face on the play, but fortunately escaped with just a minor cut that was quickly repaired.
The Blackhawks tied the game midway through the third on a Brandon Hagel redirect, but the Bruins appeared to retake the lead -- and should have retaken the lead -- a few minutes later. This is where the controversy comes in.
Off another scramble in front of the Chicago net, Charlie Coyle collected the loose puck, spun, and fired past Fleury for what could have been his second straight game-winning goal. However, the refs immediately waved off the goal, citing goaltender interference from Craig Smith.
Replay showed that Smith barely grazed Fleury, though. The more significant contact that actually knocked Fleury out of position clearly came from his teammate, Riley Stillman. Overturning the call once Bruce Cassidy challenged looked like a pretty easy decision, but the league “war room” -- which has final say on video reviews -- apparently saw things differently and upheld the no-goal call.
After the game, Cassidy calmly stated that his team was “able to get one in overtime there to win 3-1.”
“I didn’t like the call at all,” Cassidy said. “I’ve watched it 10 times and I still don’t see where there’s interference. I see their guy going into their goalie. I think Smitty might’ve touched his blocker, and that’s a might. That was before the shot and didn’t affect his ability to play the position, in my opinion. … I thought it was a good goal all day long.”
Because Cassidy and the Bruins lost the challenge, they got hit with the double whammy of not getting the goal and having to immediately go on the penalty kill. With under five minutes to go in regulation in a tied game, the Bruins were suddenly in danger of not even getting a point out of a game they had completely dominated.
But they responded to the setback well. They came up with the big penalty kill and then won in overtime when David Pastrnak drew two Blackhawks to him before springing Hall and Matt Grzelcyk on a 2-on-1 that ended with Grzelcyk’s game-winning goal.
It was the kind of win where the Bruins can feel good about the fact that they thoroughly outplayed a team they should outplay, and also feel good about the fact that they still had to face some adversity and overcame it.
“We felt really good about our game,” Grzelcyk told NESN after the win. “It’s tough when you’re putting up that many shots and you’re not seeing the puck go past the goalie. Fleury’s won some hardware in this league for a reason. The message in the room was just stick with it. … We have a lot of character in this room, so it’s good to pull it out.”
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