The Rangers made the flashiest moves before Friday’s NHL trade deadline, landing Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko. They needed to in order to try to make a run at the Bruins.
On Saturday, in what was billed as a potential Eastern Conference finals preview, it was Boston’s new additions that made the biggest impact in a 4-2 Bruins win, their 10th straight.
Tyler Bertuzzi, making his Bruins debut, set up the first goal of the game and helped create a couple more scoring chances. Dmitry Orlov, playing his fifth game with Boston and continuing to look like a perfect fit, helped set up what proved to be the game-winner and helped shut down Kane and Tarasenko. Garnet Hathaway didn’t get on the scoresheet, but he did help set the tone physically right from the opening shift and also drew a penalty later in the game.
Bertuzzi's opening-goal setup came late in the first period. First, he flipped the puck into the far corner from the neutral zone, putting it in a perfect spot for Trent Frederic to win a foot race on the forecheck and gain possession. Bertuzzi then looped behind the net from the other side, giving Frederic an easy outlet. Bertuzzi took the pass from Frederic and made a great pass through a couple Rangers sticks to hit Charlie Coyle in front for the finish.
Far more than just an agitator, Bertuzzi showed on a few occasions Saturday that he is a smart, talented offensive player, including on that Coyle goal. Another example came in the second period. Playing a stray shift with David Pastrnak and David Krejci, Bertuzzi took a pass from Pastrnak in tight and then made a heads-up drop pass to Krejci for a golden scoring chance. Unfortunately, the puck rolled on Krejci and he flipped the shot over the net.
Another came right after a Bruins power play in the third when Bertuzzi and Pavel Zacha led an extended offensive-zone cycle that trapped Rangers defensemen Braden Schneider and Ben Harpur on the ice for nearly three minutes. Bertuzzi nearly had a quality scoring chance when a Krejci shot deflected right to his feet, but he couldn’t find it in time.
“Just like we had anticipated,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said of how Bertuzzi fit in. “He’s a hockey player and he made a lot of plays. Set Krejci up for an open net in the second, and it popped, rolled on his stick. Otherwise, that’s in the back of the net. He’s really smart with his game management, too. Like he didn’t force plays at all.”
The Bruins doubled their lead to 2-0 early in the second on the best example of their penalty kill winning its matchup with the Rangers’ new-look, high-flying power play. With Kane, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Adam Fox all on the ice, it was the Bruins’ PK that ended up scoring thanks to Tomas Nosek and Coyle simply outworking New York’s stars. Nosek poked the puck away from a lackadaisical Fox deep in the Rangers’ zone, Coyle beat a stationary Zibanejad to the loose puck, and then Nosek beat a gliding Kane to the front of the net to take the pass from Coyle and tuck it past Igor Shesterkin.
The Rangers’ second power-play unit did break through later in the second period, with Alexis Lafreniere tipping in a Jacob Trouba shot. That was one of just four shots on goal the Rangers would get on their three power plays, though. When they went to the man advantage with a chance to tie the game early in the third period, the Bruins held them to zero shots and once again pinned the Rangers’ attackers in their own zone for a good chunk of it.
“We didn’t have a lot of footage, but we saw where they were gonna put Kane,” Montgomery said of his PK. “[Assistant coach] Joe Sacco does a great job with our penalty kill. It’s first in the league because he does a great job with details. We use a lot of players. So it’s a combination of we have a lot of good penalty-killers and we have a real good plan in place by Coach Sacco.”
New York would regret not doing more with that opportunity. The Bruins took over and tilted the ice as the third period went on, and extended their lead to 3-1 thanks to another major contribution from a newcomer. Orlov knocked down a Rangers entry attempt and quickly turned the puck up ice in transition. A few seconds later, Brad Marchand wrapped behind the Rangers net and fed Patrice Bergeron in the slot for the finish. With the assist, Orlov now has nine points in five games as a Bruin.
A few minutes later, the Bruins put the exclamation point on the win on a beautiful tic-tac-toe setup from Krejci to Charlie McAvoy to Pastrnak for the finish. Neither Bertuzzi nor Orlov picked up a point on that one, but they were both on the ice and had helped keep the pressure on the New York D.
Orlov was paired with McAvoy all game, and the two of them were dominant. During the 12:13 that they were on the ice together at 5-on-5, the Bruins out-attempted the Rangers 17-4, outshot them 8-2, outscored them 2-0, and had an expected goals share of 96.3%. Most of that damage came against New York’s top two lines.
“I thought they were dominant offensively and defensively,” Montgomery said of the Orlov-McAvoy pairing. “I thought Charlie was the best player in the game.”
The Bruins weren’t as dominant top-to-bottom as Orlov and McAvoy were. In fact, the Rangers did have the better of play for much of the first two periods, despite falling behind. But the Bruins decisively won the third period, and they got another strong performance from Linus Ullmark, who stopped 24 of the 26 shots he faced to improve to 32-4-1.
Conference finals preview? We’ll see. What Saturday really was for the Bruins was a statement that as splashy as the Rangers’ deadline was, Boston is still the team to beat.
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