Bruce Cassidy summed up the past few games about his team perfectly on “Bruins Overtime Live.”
“Never a dull moment for the Boston Bruins lately.”
It’s not an understatement, as Boston now has won back-to-back games with the latest coming Saturday night against its historic rival, the Montreal Canadiens. The Bruins played a physical, scrappy 60 minutes of hockey and were rewarded with a 3-2 victory after John Moore scored his first goal of the season with just under three minutes to play.
It was a full-team effort for the B’s as they got solid goaltending from Tuukka Rask and goals from David Backes, Moore and Jake DeBrusk. Cassidy said he knows things won’t be “perfect” for a while with Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron out with injuries for at least a month, but praised the netminding the Black and Gold have received.
“We’re gonna need good goaltending, we’re getting that every night,” he said. “That is one area of our team that’s healthy. They’re bringing it every night. We need it. It’s required.”
Rask was strong in net for Boston, stopping 31 of the 33 shots he faced. He gave up the two goals in the third period and it looked as if the game was going to head to overtime for the second consecutive night. But a hard-fought battle by the Bruins earned them their 13th win of the season.
“We’re getting different contributions. Johnny Moore on the power play, probably not the first guy you’d pick,” Cassidy said. “But eventually we managed to get it toward the net and bury one.”
Here are some other notes from Saturday’s Bruins-Canadiens game:
— David Pastrnak was targeted multiple times throughout the game, and his frustration finally boiled over after he slashed Andrew Shaw.
“It’s a selfish penalty. It is what it is,” Cassidy said. “He’s an elite player in the league, he’s gonna get played hard. He’s going through that process now (but) he’ll grow from it. … At the end of the day he’s a go-to guy for us.”
— David Krejci has been an absolute machine in the assist column this season, and he continued that dominance Saturday night. The veteran center recorded two helpers in the win, giving him 589 career points, good for 11th on the Bruins’ all-time points list.
— Boston extended its lead over Montreal in the Atlantic Division with the win, upping its edge to three points.
— DeBrusk’s first-period goal gave him nine points over his last 10 games.
