The Bruins survived David Krejci's game-time decision turning into a game-night off on Thursday.
Boston's second-line center sat out the 2-1 season-opening win at Dallas with the lower-body injury that's hampered him since the fifth preseason game eight days ago.
But when you're built like the Bruins, you can overcome absences like Krejci's. Not just because of the depth up front, where Charlie Coyle was able to move up a line and forge chemistry with Krejci's usual left wing Jake DeBrusk and set up Brett Ritchie for his first goal as a Bruin just 69 seconds into the game.
The Bruins were outshot 29-20 and didn't have an offensive night to brag about, but they were able to make up for missing a weapon as lethal as Krejci (career points per game 0.76) because their defense and goaltending is almost second to none, and it was on display in Big D.
Tuukka Rask was Tuukka Rask, making 28 saves on 29 shots and stopping all 16 pucks that went his way in the third period. Not to take anything away from him, but life's a little easier playing behind the Bruins' top six. Although the Stars were able to get some scoring chances from in tight, the way any NHL team would, most of their chances came from the perimeter, and that's a credit to the blue line corps.
Zdeno Chara, of course, was the mainstay, helping limit Tyler Seguin to two shots on net and Jamie Benn to none. Throughout the game, though, it was the rest of the Bruins' D group, the 20-somethings that are going to carry this team defensively when Chara eventually goes from the ice to the front office, showing that although the Bruins didn't make any chances from last season's defense Boston's defense is better because of their improvements.
Never was that more evident than early in the third period when Chara was sent to the penalty box for interference with the Bruins nursing their one-goal lead. Using a rotation of Brandon Carlo, Matt Grzelcyk and Charlie McAvoy, the Bruins held the Stars to one shot on net for the first half of the penalty kill, then three more shots during one 17-second stretch of the second half. Grzelcyk and Carlo actually became such an effective pair down the stretch, they took two of the last three defensive shifts with that same one-goal lead on the line.
McAvoy led the Bruins in ice time (21:54) and made four crucial blocked shots. Grzelcyk was second at 20:06. Chara only had to play 19:10, fifth on the team (Carlo played 19:48, Torey Krug 19:29). The Stars were down two forwards because of injury by the time the second period started, but their biggest threats were still active and still Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy able to balance out the ice time of his defensemen.
After the game, Cassidy told NESN he felt many of the veteran players that didn't play much in the preseason were still trying to find their games. That may have been true at the offensive end. However, the defensive zone play for the most part was near peak performance, with Dallas' lone goal coming when McAvoy was caught out a little too long and Chara went for a necessary, but poorly executed, line change.
Heading into training camp the Bruins calculated that even with Kevan Miller and John Moore's injuries it'd be tough for anyone new to crack this defense group. Urho Vaakanainen, Jakub Zboril and Jeremy Lauzon lived that fact and are now back with Providence.
Judging by Thursday night's performance, only injury will open up a spot. And if the young, veteran defensemen keep progressing, the Bruins will be able to survive many more off nights by their offense.
