Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy is hopeful Charlie McAvoy just provided Boston a special-teams spark it has been searching for.
The Bruins’ top defenseman tied the game 2-all at 13:35 of the third period with a power-play goal off an assist from Brad Marchand. And while it was pivotal to Boston’s 3-2 shootout victory, it also snapped a streak in which the Bruins had gone nine power plays without a man-advantage goal.
“I mean it’s a crunch-time goal. That’s what you look for out of your power play,” Cassidy said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “The numbers are obviously important, you want to have statistically good numbers, but it’s timing a lot.”
The timing certainly couldn’t have been better. The numbers, on the other hand, couldn’t have been much worse before McAvoy’s tally.
The Bruins now are 3-for-19 on the power play this season. They were 0-for-9 on the power play in their last three games before McAvoy put a stop to it.
Cassidy now is hoping those numbers are a thing of the past.
“I thought it was a little better tonight, at least we had a sort of plan to get going to the net, shoot and recover,” Cassidy said. “Our power play typically has been a weapon, not so this year, but hopefully that’ll give it a little juice.”
The Bruins will have a chance to prove just that when they return to the ice Thursday at TD Garden against the Detroit Red Wings.
