The Bruins Lose the Final Game of a Three Game Road Trip to the Minnesota Wild 1-0
The Boston Bruins faced off against the league's stingiest team in the goals against department, the Minnesota Wild. The Wild are in first place in the NHL goals against category with only 29 goals against so far this season, for a season GAA of 1.81. With a Claude Julien coached defensive Bruins and these two teams facing off against one another, I had a feeling it was going to be a low scoring game. Not this low scoring but, I wasn't surprised this ended as a 1-0 game. Watching the game was honestly not all that exciting because both teams just played excellent defensive hockey which made it hard for either team to get any real scoring chances. Most of the shots were not "great scoring opportunities" but just shots on net.
Devan Dubnyk on Pace for a Vezina Trophy
Devan Dubnyk is in first place in the NHL in basically every quantifiable goalie statistic that matters. The only one he isn't leading is wins, and that is because the Wild are only 9-6-1. When you click on "Goaltender leaders" on NHL.com it is basically all Dubnyk:
This game was Devan's 4th shutout of the year, and he posted a solid 25 save effort. I think one of the best chances against him came in the third period when Matt Beleskey forced a turnover in the pivotal zone near the blue line, and Dubnyk came out and used his massive 6'6" frame to deny the chance sprawling out across the ice to poke the puck away from Beleskey, pictured above. If Dubnyk keeps these numbers up he will walk away with the Vezina this year. Considering how solid Minnesota's Blue Line is that is a possibility.
Minnesota's Jersey's Make them Look Like Elves Lulz
When Minnesota scored with 4o something seconds left to go up 1-0 in the final minute of the game, I was not super happy as a Bruin's fan. However, my fiancee Jasmine (who I am trying to get to join steemit) then made a comment that I couldn't help but laugh at. She remarked that,
The Minnesota team looks like elves.
This caused tears of lulz to come screaming out. Elves, yeah they do. I mean seriously look at that jersey and tell me if you saw a Minnesota Wild Player at the mall next month you wouldn't ask him where Santa was? Those jersey's are terrible, if you are going to go with that look make them wear elf hats and change the name to the Minnesota Wild Elves lulz. This is what you get Minnesota for making me watch an entire game just to see the Bruins lose by 1 damn goal in the last minute.
Bergeron, Marchand Line Missing David Pastrnak
Unfortunately the Bruins leading goal scorer this seas David Pastrnak had to miss the Minnesota game with an upper body injury, likely suffered in the previous game. During the last game against Colorado, Pastrnak took a big hit along the boards and left the ice. He came back and played the rest of the game, but wasn't himself. Hopefully this isn't a long term thing because the Bergeron line has been the best line for the Bruins and Pastrnak was crushing it this season. The Bergeron line had Riley Nash skating on it last night. Riley is a solid 4th line player but does not belong on a top NHL line. If it was Rick Nash that would be a different story. Riley Nash did make some nice plays as pictured above, but the Bergeron line could use Pastrnak back. Oddly Bergeron had a losing face-off percentage last night of 42%, which is so rare it must be documented on the Block Chain, because it is like finding a unicorn.
Conclusion from Game
The Bruins are not built to win a defensive battle against a great defensive team. When they face a team like the Wild, even though they only lost by 1, they should have opened up their game and tried to make this more of an offensive and open game. The Bruins have far more talent up front even with Pastrnak out than Minnesota, so sticking with the Claude trap system all night was a mistake. The Bruins coach Claude basically is just a stubborn angry man, who hates offense, and loves to bore people to death in these types of games. Sometimes it works sometimes not, unfortunately the Bruins only ended up getting 4 out of 6 points on this road trip. If they had just held out for 40 more seconds they could have had 5 points on this trip. If the season ended today the Bruins would be the worst team the 8th ranked team to make the playoffs. This is exactly what I predicted in my season preview, that the Bruins would be a team that was a borderline playoff team all year, and either just make the playoffs or just miss again depending on the health of certain guys. Hopefully the Bruins can prove me wrong on this, but so far I am right.
Image Credits:
- Bruins vs. Minnesota, My Own Photoshop Job
- Devan Dubnyk stuffs Beleskey: Image 2
- My Screenshot from NHL.com
- Minnesota Elves v.s Bruins : Image 4
- Riley Nash tips shot: Image 5
- My Screenshot from NHL.com
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