The Bruins won their seventh straight game Monday night, but by no means was it easy.
Boston beat the Edmonton Oilers 3-2 at Rogers Place in a game that featured some bloodied Bruins players, Connor McDavid reaching 50 goals for the first time in his career and the B’s needing to rebound from a slow start.
Here are four takeaways from Monday’s win:
Bruins left battered and bruised
Brad Marchand’s first shift saw him head down the tunnel after a collision with Darnell Nurse. With Tayor Hall back in Boston due to injury, it certainly wouldn’t have been ideal for the Bruins to lose another player for any period of time. But Marchand returned to the bench before the first period ended and head coach Jim Montgomery revealed after the game that he received stitches due to a cut from Nurse’s skate.
“He suffered a skate cut I think above the ankle,” Montgomery told reporters after the game. “He just had to get sutured, stitched up.”
The Bruins don’t skate prior to Tuesday’s game, so we won’t know if Marchand will play against the Calgary Flames until about 7:40 p.m. ET.
Marchand wasn’t the only player to get banged up, though. David Krejci’s stick got him in the head and caused his helmet to fly to the ice. He was bloodied but didn’t miss a shift. Patrice Bergeron was the victim of a high stick to the eye.
Bruins struggled against Oilers’ speed
The Oilers are a very fast team and the Bruins often found themselves struggling against their speed. The second period saw sloppy hockey from Boston with a lot of giveaways. Even though the Bruins came away with the win and improved to 46-8-5 on the season, they know there still is room for improvement.
“I don’t think anyone is satisfied in here,” Nick Foligno, who scored his 10th goal Monday night, told reporters after the game. “I think we’re really excited about our group. But we all know there’s more to do, and that’s the mindset that’s allowed us to have the success we’ve had.”
Depth came up big again
The Bruins got a lot of help from their depth players Monday night in a game that saw the top line of Marchand, Bergeron and Jake DeBrusk go without a point. Foligno and Tomas Nosek scored for the Bruins and Pavel Zacha scored the game-winning goal on a heck of a play where Zacha never gave up on the puck.
“It has (been) and it’s been the difference for most of the year,” Montgomery told NESN’s Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley of the depth. “We got six D-man, seven D-man that can really play hockey and then we got four lines that can play hockey. We really liked our five-on-five game (Monday).”
Bruins found a way to win
As we’ve seen so many times this season, the Bruins did what they had to do to earn a win. Monday marked arguably the ugliest Bruins’ win of the year, but they still came away with two points as they continue to sit atop the NHL standings. Without Hall and with the top line not at its sharpest, the defense played a big role in keeping the Oilers at bay.
“Winning’s a skill,” McDavid told reporters, per The Boston Globe’s Kevin Paul Dupont, “and obviously the Bruins have mastered it.”
