[ad_1]
Despite their gaudy record and spot atop the Atlantic Division, the Bruins are not a team that can show up to a game a half hour late and steal a win.
They learned that lesson on Thursday night at the Garden, when the previously struggling Buffalo Sabres took it to the B’s for the first half of the game, protected their lead well and took home a well-deserved 3-1 victory.
The Sabres, playing without top defenseman Rasmus Dahlin (lower body), scored a pair of goals in the second period, another in the third and that was good enough.
Coach Jim Montgomery sensed a performance like this might be coming after Wednesday’s practice that he found lacking in pace and effort. It carried over.
“We just didn’t have any energy or life to us. I’ve got to take responsibility for the lack of us having that. The preparation clearly wasn’t correct,” said Montgomery. “I expected us to get better every period. I think we went from awful to poor. We never really got to average for our game.”
What was more concerning than the defeat was the loss of top defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who left the game with an apparent head injury in the third period. Montgomery said it was an upper body injury on McAvoy, who took a reverse hit from J.J. Peterka and did not return. He didn’t get a good enough look at it to say that it was a bad hit.
“I couldn’t tell at full speed right at the bench,” said Montgomery. “I know Charlie was surprised by the hit. I couldn’t tell if it was an elbow or it was clean.”
In the first period, the Bruins looked like a team that had three days off and needed to shake off the cobwebs. They were outshot by the Sabres 19-5.
It was a scoreless first period, though it briefly looked like the Sabres had taken a lead with 5:18 left in a weird sequence. Newly acquired forward Eric Robinson poked the puck home under Linus Ullmark (32 saves). It was initially waved off by the official behind the net but, after a conference during the commercial break, the Sabres were awarded the goal.
Then Montgomery challenged for goalie interference and the video clearly showed that Kyle Okposo had shoved Ullmark into the net with his stick, allowing Robinson to get at the puck. The goal rightly came off the board, but the B’s got no bolt of adrenaline from it.
Buffalo got its 1-0 lead early in the second period at 1:18, on a simple play. Dylan Cozens cleanly beat Pavel Zacha in a faceoff at the left circle, drawing it straight back to Peterka, who seemed to surprise Ullmark with a snap shot over the glove.
The B’s, who were without rookie Matt Poitras ( a planned healthy scratch in a type of rookie load management), needed to find both their legs and hands, but they were hard to locate on this night.
They did start spending a little more time in the Buffalo zone, holding an 11-9 shot advantage in the second. But after Devon Levi (28 saves) stoned Brad Marchand on a glittering chance from the slot, the Sabres took a 2-0 lead. Old friend Connor Clifton jumped down from the right point past James van Riemsdyk to win a puck along the half board and feed Tage Thompson, who whistled it past Ullmark at 16:57.
But just 38 seconds later, the B’s finally got one back with 2:25 left in the period, thanks to a fortunate bounce. Marchand drifted up into the right circle and, without much of a play, he fired the puck toward the net. It bounced off Sabre defenseman Erik Johnson and past Levi for Marchand’s 12th of the season and the fifth straight Bruin goal scored by the captain, dating back to his overtime game-winner last Saturday in Toronto.
That was all they would have to show for their efforts on the night.
The B’s pushed hard in the third period with lots off offensive zone time, but the usually porous Sabres played well in front of Levi. Eventually, they busted out on a 2-on-1, with Victor Olofsson taking the shot and snapping it past Ullmark with 8:44 remaining in regulation, ending a period of 10:30 of continuous play.
At that point, it did not look like it was going to be the B’s night, especially after the B’s had lost McAvoy, who looked dazed from the Peterka hit.
“That’s a gap that’s hard to fill, obviously,” said Brandon Carlo. “Obviously our best defenseman. In those siuations when you’re down by a goal or two, he’s a guy that you want on the ice. Specifically in this situation tonight, it would have been very nice to have him, being down a couple of goals. But just like anything, injuries happen, bad games happen and we continue to move forward.”
The B’s pulled Ullmark with 3:26 left and kept the puck in the Buffalo zone for almost all of it, but couldn’t get another past Levi, snapping the B’s three-game win streak.
It was a just result.
“Sometimes we’re not prepared to start with the intensity we need to,” said Marchand. “We seem to be going back and forth from playing the way we need to to be successful to trying to be too cute and thinking the game’s going to be easy at times. This game will humble you pretty quick. We saw that tonight.”
[ad_2]
