For two teams who only meet twice per season, the Bruins and Minnesota Wild seemingly bring out another side in each other.
That trend continued Tuesday night during the Bruins’ final pre-holiday home tilt at TD Garden – resulting in a 4-3 overtime win for the Wild.
After yet another sluggish beginning, Jakub Lauko gave the Bruins the much-needed energy. Lauko immediately challenged Connor Dewar during Marcus Johansson’s power play marker shift, delivering a few hard hits in a brawl between the two fourth-line forwards.
David Pastrnak, a fellow countryman, continued where Lauko left off by hitting two goals in the first twenty minutes, including a game-winning goal, to lead Boston in scoring.
David Pastrnak scores his second goal of the period … with under a second left in the opening period.
Throughout the second 20 minutes and into the third, the Bruins had numerous opportunities to increase their lead to 2-1. The Wild, playing their second game in as many nights, trailed only slightly to Marc-Andre Fleury’s several stops on multiple high-danger scoring opportunities for Boston.
In the third, the Bruins were condemned again by not stretching a lead. With 4:50 remaining in regulation, the Wild, playing their second game in as many nights, led 3-2 thanks to goals from Kirill Kaprizov and Ryan Hartman, who scored only 1:50 apart.
For the sixth time this season, the Bruins gave up a lead in the third period. But in the latter stages of regulation, they persisted and eventually ended Fleury’s run of 33 straight stops.
With 1:06 left on a 6-on-4 power play against Fleury, Brad Marchand retrieved a loose puck in a sea of people.
Boston managed to win its fourth consecutive game in overtime. However, the Wild capitalized on one last break when Kaprizov scored on a 3-on-1 following Jake DeBrusk’s ill-fated attempt at the other end of the rink to seal Minnesota’s triumph.
What may be inferred from Boston’s second consecutive overtime loss on Garden Ice is as follows.
In overtime, Montgomery questioned DeBrusk’s choice of shot.
Even after Marchand came back to rescue a point, the Bruins weren’t exactly leading the Wild. However, similar to previous efforts for insurance markers, they were in position to win 20 games this season.
However, on Boston’s last rush of the extra session, DeBrusk, Charlie Coyle, and Matt Grzelcyk made blunders collectively with the game on their stick. DeBrusk missed the net entirely to start the sequence, which allowed the Wild to take control with a counterattack. Grzelcyk was forced to defend himself against Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Brock Faber while Coyle and DeBrusk crashed the net.
Coach Jim Montgomery remarked of Boston’s final overtime possession, “Gotta get that on net.” “I object to both players heading to the net and crossing the goal line, as well as the choice of shots. That’s what gives up the other team’s 3-on-1 advantage.
This season, the Bruins’ record in 3-on-3 overtime is now 2-5. They lost every game after giving up a lead in the third quarter.
The most recent third-period collapse is highlighted by defensive lapses and offensive desperation.
The Bruins held the Wild at bay for two periods. The Bruins gave up too much space in the slot in the third as the frantic Wild continued to press, creating both primary and secondary opportunities.
The long defensive shifts and the inability to clear the puck eventually allowed the Wild to capitalize on Boston’s mistakes. Late in the third, after Hartman and Ullmark had given the Bruins a lead with a net-front goal, Kaprizov buried a rebound off the post to put the team back in the lead.
“I dislike the rebound opportunities we’re missing as well as the plays to the slot that we’re giving up. We need to clean up some regions,” Montgomery remarked. “I was pleased with our competitive level and the way we responded. We need to improve both offensively and defensively, but I believe that this time of year everyone agrees on that point.
In this — excuse the pun — Wild match, the Bruins had their opportunities. Especially after outperforming Minnesota by a wide margin in the middle 20, they might have used some supplementary scoring to lessen the pressure on the elite players like Pastrnak.
Minnesota had hope after Boston’s 43-shot performance because it did not offer any insurance. In the process, Fleury’s visit to the fountain of youth became the focal point for the scheming Wild.
“This league is the finest in the entire globe. Pastrnak stated, “You have good goaltenders, especially a guy like Fleury.” He kept them in the game with some incredible saves. There were a few opportunities for me to end the game, but I didn’t. We really ought to have won this game, but credit to them still. It is a difficult defeat for us.
Lauko was a house of fire.
A few months ago in Chicago, Lauko took a skate up high and just avoided a possibly lethal impact. He recovered rather quickly, playing again for Boston’s bottom six in a matter of weeks, wearing a full face protection and a new neck guard after an incident similar to this one that killed former NHL player Adam Johnson abroad.
After eighteen days, Lauko went back to fourth-line duty. Shortly after rejoining Boston’s starting lineup, he removed the complete face shield but left the neck guard on.
Lauko selected Tuesday for his first fight since his injury after receiving the all-clear from the coaching staff to start fighting again. After Johansson’s score, the two engaged in a faceoff, and the Czech sparkplug quickly took Dewar down with a few well-placed blows.
Following a flat start, the Bruins immediately received a boost, turning a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead from Pastrnak’s pair.
It was excellent. About Lauko’s fight, Montgomery remarked, “It got us into it, and I felt we picked up our intensity after that because they had just scored.” We were a little flat, but it perked us up, I thought.
Not long after leaving the box, Lauko came dangerously close to picking up the Bruins again.
On one of their many successful shifts, Boston’s fourth line hemmed Minnesota in. An assertive Lauko had enough of room behind the net to make a play during that shift. He chose to try the lacrosse-style goal at the University of Michigan that was made famous by Mike Legg about thirty years ago. He came just inches short of making a highlight-reel marker.
Lauko acknowledged that he had trained on “the Michigan” throughout the offseason. During Boston’s spurt of opportunities against the Wild on Tuesday, the chance to put that into practice presented itself.
“If you know how to do it, it’s not hard at all, but you have to find a good opportunity to do it,” Lauko stated. “This was a good chance to do it, but regrettably, it didn’t go through.”
In an attempt to tighten up in the final moments for the Bruins, perhaps Lauko will have another chance to perform the trick.
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