Faced with the rare challenge of bouncing back from a regulation loss, the Boston Bruins hit the road to face another division leader, the New York Rangers, on Saturday afternoon.
The game will be the second in a back-to-back set for both teams, but Boston will look to resume its winning ways a day after losing 5-2 to the visiting Detroit Red Wings.
It was an all-around off game for Boston, which never held a lead for only the second time this season and surrendered two power-play goals. It was just the second regulation defeat for the Bruins in 19 games.
“The nature of being a competitor is that when you lose, you want to right the ship right away,” Bruins forward Charlie Coyle said. “You get a chance to play (the next day), that’s the best thing you can ask for. … We take pride in bouncing back and playing well after a loss.”
Jake DeBrusk has followed a seven-game scoring drought with goals in back-to-back games for the Bruins, who had been 5-0-2 since losing in regulation on Nov. 4 in Detroit.
Danton Heinen also lit the lamp on Friday, but self-inflicted mistakes were too numerous for Boston to overcome.
“The execution on the forecheck, in the neutral zone (were not good),” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “The only part of our game I liked was our breakouts. Power play wasn’t good, penalty kill wasn’t good. You’re not going to win a lot of games when that’s the case.”
The expected return of Matt Grzelcyk from long-term injured reserve on Saturday should give Boston a boost. The veteran defenseman has been sidelined since Oct. 30 with an upper-body injury.
Forward Morgan Geekie (upper body) was back in the Bruins’ lineup on Friday, while James van Riemsdyk and Oskar Steen were scratched.
“We’re in the middle of five games in eight days,” Montgomery said of his lineup decisions. “And that’s going to continue” with a Monday night game in Columbus.
New York extended its near-perfect run — 12-1-1 in the past 14 games — with a 3-1 road win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday. The Rangers now will meet the NHL’s leading team for the first time this season.
Following a 2-2-0 start to the campaign, the Rangers had gone 11 straight games without a regulation loss (10-0-1) prior to Monday’s 6-3 loss in Dallas.
Against the Flyers, Mika Zibanejad doubled his season total by scoring two goals. He netted the first of New York’s two goals in the opening 1:53. Chris Kreider had the other.
“I think all the wins that we’ve had, the season that we’ve had so far, has made the personal struggle of scoring a lot easier to handle,” Zibanejad said.
Zibanejad, Kreider and first-year Ranger Blake Wheeler have formed great chemistry in seven games as a line.
“There’s been lots of times where I think they’ve played good games and they’ve had lots of looks and they’ve hit posts and they could have scored goals … and it just hasn’t happened for them,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s nice to see the results go that way for them to build off of that.”
On the defensive side, the Rangers have allowed no more than one goal for a league-leading nine times.
Igor Shesterkin, who has been in net for five of those games, made a season-high 36 saves in Philadelphia.
–Field Level Media
