The Bruins just needed to find a way to get a regulation win. They hadn’t done so in nine games. Pretty, ugly, blowout, close – it didn’t matter. Just find a way to close out a game and stay away from overtime.
It’s a good thing the Bruins were looking for two points, not style points. They got their first regulation win since Feb. 8 on Thursday, beating the Vegas Golden Knights 5-4, but it certainly wasn’t pretty.
Bruins beat Vegas, but concerns remain
The Bruins started the game with one of their best periods of the season and took a 3-0 lead into the first intermission. But then, as too many games have recently, it started slipping away – this time in the second period rather than the third.
The Golden Knights cut it to 3-2 with a pair of goals in the first seven minutes of the second. Morgan Geekie pushed it to 4-2 with his third goal of the game, capping off his first career hat trick. Just 1:14 later, Vegas made it a one-goal game again.
Then disaster struck 5:01 into the third when Chandler Stephenson scored a shorthanded goal to tie the game at 4-4. Were the Bruins really going to end up in overtime again after blowing a multi-goal lead? Or worse, would they lose in regulation this time?
Neither. Rookie defenseman Mason Lohrei made sure of that, burying a one-time feed from Kevin Shattenkirk for a power-play goal with 4:37 to go to give Boston the 5-4 lead.
The final few minutes weren't exactly a masterpiece either. A Matt Grzelcyk holding the stick penalty gave the Golden Knights a late power play. A couple failed clears gave them extra zone time in the final minute. But Jeremy Swayman made a couple big saves and the Bruins held on for the regulation win. And given the way these last few weeks have gone, that is ultimately what was most important.
“In the end, you want two points,” Charlie Coyle said. “It wasn't pretty, it wasn't easy, but in the end, we got two points. So, you can still learn from this game and certain things within it, but we grabbed those two and we'll move forward.”
Here are three takeaways from the game:
Geekie’s first career hat trick
Morgan Geekie’s last three goals before Thursday were spread across 23 games. He was far from the only Bruins forward that had gone a bit quiet in the goal-scoring department, but he was definitely someone they wanted to get going again. Third lines are crucial down the stretch and into the playoffs, and they often go as their center – Geekie, in this case – goes.
Well, Geekie got going in a big way Thursday, recording his first career hat trick. He opened the scoring 14:34 into the game, turning defense into offense when he blocked a shot, took a feathery lead pass from Trent Frederic, raced in on a breakaway, and snapped a shot past Adin Hill.
Just 2:20 later, he scored again, ripping a one-timer under the crossbar off a David Pastrnak feed on the rush.
Geekie completed the hat trick late in the second period, winning an offensive-zone faceoff and then going to the front of the net, where he tipped in a shot from Pastrnak.
“It's something I'll never forget, for sure,” Geekie said. “It's one of those things that you always hope will happen and not something you ever put weight on. There’s a lot of good players in this league, and it's not something that happens every day. So, I'm definitely gonna cherish it for sure.”
Geekie, who signed over the summer after not receiving a qualifying offer from the Seattle Kraken, now has 13 goals and 30 points on the season, both of which are career highs. Needless to say, he’s happy with his decision to sign with Boston.
“It's been great,” he said. “Signing here, obviously it's a storied franchise and you know what you're walking into with the people that have come before me. So, I just try to take it in. The coaching staff’s been great. The organization’s great. The guys have been awesome. Old guys, new guys, we're all one big group. We all kind of hang out together. So, there's just a camaraderie amongst everyone that you don't get everywhere else. So yeah, it's definitely all I could ask for and more.”
Geekie became the third Bruin to register his first career hat trick this season (joining Charlie Coyle and Danton Heinen) and the fifth different Bruin overall to record a hat trick (Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak each have one as well). This is just the second time in the last 28 years that the Bruins have had five different players get a hat trick in one season.
Still too many mistakes
As we established earlier, a win’s a win, and the Bruins really did just need a win. But there was still an awful lot that needs to be cleaned up in this one.
The Bruins made sloppy mistakes on three of the Golden Knights’ goals. On their second, Charlie McAvoy and Brad Marchand collided at their own blue line. That’s an accident, but then the whole team was too slow getting back on defense, and McAvoy wound up overskating the puck at the net-front, allowing Alex Pietrangelo to get multiple whacks at it before scoring.
On the third, Brandon Carlo and Justin Brazeau couldn’t get the puck out up the wall, and then a miscommunication resulted in Carlo and Jesper Boqvist going to the same spot at the net-front and bumping into each other, leaving eventual goal-scorer Michael Amadio uncovered behind them.
Soon after that, the Bruins gave up a 3-on-1 that could have tied the game. They survived that, but not Stephenson’s shorthanded breakaway a short time later. That came after Pastrnak shot into a body and then missed as he swung his stick at the bouncing puck coming back towards him, when he really should have gotten his whole body in front of the puck.
“I think the second and third goals, there's no desperation getting back to our net,” Montgomery said. “And then even when we went back up 4-2, and then it's 4-3, we give up a 4-on-1 almost, a minute and a half left [in the second period]. It's game management. It's making sure you're doing the right thing, you're on the right side of the puck, and we're just not consistently doing that.
“And we get three odd-man rushes in one penalty kill, we don't score. They get one odd-man rush, it goes in. And again, that odd-man rush shouldn't happen. There should be recognition of a bouncing puck and a little bit more desperation on our side to get on the right side of the puck.”
The closeout effort after Lohrei’s go-ahead goal left a lot to be desired, too. Grzelcyk’s penalty was unnecessary. Pastrnak and Marchand both had the puck on their stick with a chance to clear in the final minute, but failed to get it out of the zone. This was a step in the right direction in terms of the result, but not so much as far as the process goes.
Boqvist, fourth line continue to step up
Jesper Boqvist is quietly becoming quite the fourth-line center for the Bruins, and the fourth line as a whole is playing its best hockey of the season in large part because of him.
Boqvist scored the Bruins’ second goal of the night with a nice finish from the slot. He now has seven points (3 goals, 4 assists) in the last seven games. He has played 26 games this season and has been a minus in just one of them – and that game came way back on Dec. 15. At 5-on-5 play, he has been on the ice for 15 goals for and just five against, giving him a 75% goals share that is tops on the team.
On Thursday, Boqvist was centering Jakub Lauko and Justin Brazeau. During the 8:04 that they were on the ice together, the Bruins out-attempted Vegas 17-2. All three were involved in Boqvist’s goal. Brazeau worked the puck back to the point, all three went to the front for Kevin Shattenkirk’s point shot, Boqvist and Lauko actually double-deflected that shot, and then Lauko tracked down the rebound before setting up Boqvist.
Brazeau, now five games into his NHL career, continues to go to the dirty areas and make plays down low that help the Bruins maintain possession. Lauko, who had been a healthy scratch for six of the last eight games, brought the kind of energy Montgomery has told him he needs to bring consistently if he’s going to stay in the lineup.
Anthony Richard had also been playing well on the fourth line (and other lines at times) recently, but he was sent back to AHL Providence earlier Thursday. While it was not immediately clear why, it’s worth noting that had Richard played one more NHL game, he would have then required waivers to be sent down. The move may have been more about maintaining roster flexibility ahead of the trade deadline than Richard’s play.
“I just think the third and fourth lines, even on the road trip, our third and fourth line lately have been scoring 5-on-5 more than our first and second,” Montgomery said. “So, it's much needed, as the first and second need to start picking it up as well in 5-on-5 scoring.”