The Boston Bruins have looked unbeatable at times over the last 18 games, and their strong all-around play led to a 14-0-4 record during that span.
That 18-game point streak was the franchise’s best since the Bobby Orr era, but it came to an end Tuesday night at TD Garden when the Anaheim Ducks left Boston with a 3-1 win.
“I didn’t think that much about (the streak),” B’s head coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters after the game, per a transcript provided by the team. “It’s nice to be on it, don’t get me wrong. I take a lot of pride in it. We try to win every night, and it’s a credit to the guys. It’s not going to go on forever; we all know that. It’s too good a league. It certainly put ourselves in a good position in the standings to get on that roll, but we’ll have to start a new one now.”
The streak vaulted the B’s from the fringe of the playoff race to second place in the Atlantic Division. In fact, it’s quite possible the Bruins catch the Tampa Bay Lightning for the top spot in the Eastern Conference given they have two games in hand — something almost unthinkable a month ago.
Barring a catastrophic collapse, the B’s will be returning to the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second straight season, and this point streak likely will end up being the catalyst for that.
Here are some other notes from Bruins vs. Ducks:
— B’s left winger Brad Marchand served the second of his five-game suspension for elbowing New Jersey Devils forward Marcus Johansson last Tuesday. Boston also was without rookie defenseman Charlie McAvoy.
These absences were notable Tuesday night as the B’s lost a lot of 50-50 puck battles and weren’t playing with their normal level of pace and energy.
— Bruins forward Anders Bjork replaced Marchand at left wing, but left the game in the first period. The B’s officially ruled him out in the second period because of an upper body injury.
Cassidy told reporters after the game Bjork will “miss some time. I don’t know how much.”
— The Bruins went down 1-0 at 9:04 of the first period when Jakob Silfverberg was credited with a goal that happened because Zdeno Chara slid into B’s backup goalie Anton Khudobin. Boston now has allowed the first goal in eight straight games and but it’s 6-1-1 in those matchups.
— Bruins forward Ryan Spooner scored Boston’s only goal with 42 seconds remaining in the third period. It was his fifth goal and seventh point in the last nine games.
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— Bruins backup goalie Anton Khudobin started in place of Tuukka Rask and struggled throughout the night. He started a bit shaky, allowing two first-period goals and finishing with 24 saves overall.
After 7-1-2 start to the season, Khudobin has lost five of his last seven starts. He’s given up three or more goals in four of those seven contests.
“Yeah, the first goal. He would be the first to tell you, he just kind of whiffed on it,” Cassidy told reporters. “I don’t know if it was a changeup or dropped, and they were hard in front of our net. The other one was a good shot. I think he could have got out, but there was a guy in his face. He was like the rest of our team in the first period – not very good. I can’t sugarcoat it. We got going, and we were the much better team the last 40, but we weren’t good early, and he was certainly included in that mix.”
— The Ducks have enjoyed a lot of success against the Bruins of late. They’re now 12-1-1 in their last 14 games against the B’s, including a 4-0-1 mark with a plus-8 goal differential in Anaheim’s last five matchups at TD Garden.
— Ducks goalie John Gibson was phenomenal in net, making 25 saves on 25 shots before being pulled because of an injury with 6:54 left in the game.
