Trailing the hapless and downright disastrous Canadiens by a single goal with just 2:46 left in the third period, the Bruins were firing blanks. With 43 shots fired on Montreal de facto starter Antti Niemi (and with nearly 40 other attempts blocked and/or missed by the Black and Gold), the B's had nothing to show for it. Zip. Nada. Bupkis.
By that last power play chance, you no longer feigned excitement with every Bruin d-man's uncontested slapshot fired on net. You knew it was going nowhere 'cept Niemi's glove.
But then a streaking Jake DeBrusk, at one point taken out of the forward rotation due to some mediocre shifts, went between the circles and with Nick Holden's eyes on him.
"I like to go to the front of the net, it's more just a focus of getting there and obviously it was perfect timing it was a great pass from [Holden]," DeBrusk said. "I knew it was coming it was just a matter of just getting a stick on. It's just a matter of when those are tight games like that teams are collapsing, you got to find a way. I was happy we did."
The goal that brought TD Garden back out of their Saturday snooze, and signaled the official start of the B's takeover. And from there Brad Marchand capped a 4:51 stretch featuring two goals on seven shots -- including the overtime winner -- in a 2-1 final.
And served as just another example of this team's incredible resolve.
"It's good we are such a good team that it's usually someone else, which is really good for us," David Pastrnak, who finished with four shots on 10 total attempts, said. "We are always trying to get better. Like I said, thank God that two was enough tonight."
This was also a win that the Bruins pulled off with Charlie McAvoy going down just 37 seconds into play, with David Krejci battling through something for the second half of the game, and Tuukka Rask sitting as a late scratch with what the B's are calling a 'very, very minor' injury.
I know; this is not the kind of you win go nuts over. The Habs are a nightmare, Carey Price and Shea Weber were both on the shelf for this game, and it was their third game in four nights. But these are the kind of wins that good teams find a way to pull off.
Especially when you have a goaltender at the other end of the rink stopping 48-of-50 shots thrown his way, and with your netminder stopping 27-of-28 on his net.
"I thought early on, our focus [was off]. I think there's a lot of nights that some our top-end guys kind of misfired on chances. So, maybe this 5:00 start, guys are out of routine, just weren't I think, dialed in as much as normal, but they found it," Cassidy acknowledged. "You've got to give their goalie credit. I thought, for a 1-1 game, both goaltenders were – I don't know if they were one and two star, but damn close if they weren't. I thought it was a really well played game as far as the goaltending."
"We all accept the fact that you're not going to be at your best every night, but you want to go out there and make sure you have the effort and execute as well as you can," B's defender Kevan Miller said. "But, I think we're heading in that direction for sure."
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