Give the Canadiens credit. With the playoffs already out of sight and nearly half their team injured, they still came to play Tuesday night and put up an admirable fight against the league-leading Bruins.
At times, it looked like they might even find a way to steal at least a point. The Habs actually took a 1-0 lead midway through the second. They also tied the game at 2-2 with 8:29 left in the game.
But then the Bruins did what they have done so often this season: They ripped their opponent’s heart out. They finished strong. They reminded everyone that even if you find a way to hang with them for a couple periods, actually beating them is a completely different animal.
As their coach put it after the game, this was “typical Boston Bruins.”
“It was a classic rivalry game. I thought the Canadiens played hard. We had to fight for every inch. Typical Boston Bruins,” Jim Montgomery told NESN. “The spoked-B found a way, led by our captain.”
It was indeed Patrice Bergeron who scored the decisive goal. On a night when he uncharacteristically lost his first eight faceoffs, Bergeron won the most important one, an offensive-zone draw with three minutes left in the game that set up a quick shot for David Pastrnak. The rebound sprung into the slot, where Bergeron pounced on it and buried what proved to be the game-winning goal. Pastrnak tacked on an empty-netter to seal the 4-2 win.
Earlier in the third period, it was the Bruins’ other legendary center who gave them a 2-1 lead. After a lengthy net-front battle, David Krejci got himself in position to tip in a Pastrnak shot from the point.
The Bruins have had so many different guys step up in big moments this season, but on Tuesday it was the two veterans who have been the team’s spine for well over a decade.
“I think it’s just their desire and their will to be difference-makers,” Montgomery said of Bergeron and Krejci. “They pride themselves on being go-to guys, and they’re definitely that for us. I don’t know where we’d be without them.”
It wasn’t just them, of course. Pastrnak set up both of those goals and finished the night with a goal and three assists. He now has 37 goals and 69 points in 47 games this season, ranking second and third in the NHL, respectively.
Jeremy Swayman stopped 20 of the 22 shots he faced to stay hot. In his last nine starts, he’s now 7-0-2 with a .938 save percentage, which is right in line with tandem-mate and Vezina Trophy favorite Linus Ullmark over the same stretch (8-1-0, .939 save percentage).
Taylor Hall snapped his 16-game goalless drought, poking home a rebound on the power play late in the second period to tie the game 1-1. He was one of the Bruins’ most dangerous players all night, leading the team in individual expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick.
On paper, this was a game that looked like it had the potential to be a blowout win for the Bruins along the lines of their recent 6-0 win over the Flyers or 4-0 win over the Sharks. The NHL doesn’t always work that way, though.
This one wound up being a bit of a dogfight. The Bruins had to grind it out, but this team’s unbelievable season -- they’re now 38-5-4 and 14 points clear of the rest of the NHL -- has trained us to believe that in the end, they’ll find a way to win.
They believe it, too, because they keep proving to themselves that they will.
“There’s a lot of poise to our team and a huge belief that we will find a way,” Montgomery said. “I think Patrice said, ‘Never in doubt,’ after the game, and it’s the way we feel. We feel if it’s tied, we’re gonna come out on top.”
Typical Boston Bruins, indeed.
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