Everything you need to know from the Bruins’ 3-0 win over the Wild in quickie form, with BSJ insight and analysis…
BOX SCORE
HEADLINES
B’s can’t avoid injuries: Bruce Cassidy opted to rest five regulars in the B’s lineup on Thursday night, but the injury bug still managed to bite Boston in what was a mostly meaningless game — especially with Minnesota out of playoff contention and the Bruins already clinching home ice against Toronto in the playoffs. After logging the most time on ice of any Bruins player over the first stanza, Kevan Miller went down just 20 seconds into the second period — slamming his leg into the boards after fighting off Jordan Greenway while racing for a puck.
Kevan Miller goes into the boards and he's hurting.
Not good. pic.twitter.com/XoTPFY1dDV
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) April 5, 2019
Miller, who has been limited to just 39 games this season due to a number of injuries, managed to return late in the second period for a couple of shifts, but was not out on the ice for the third period. Thankfully, it appears that holding out Miller was just precautionary, per Cassidy following the 3-0 win. With just one regular season game left on the docket and with not much else to play for this week, any long-term injury for Miller would have been a brutal development — similar to how Boston lost
Brandon Carlo
in each of the last two seasons just ahead of the playoffs.
While Boston has largely been able to soldier on without Miller for extended stretches this year, the B’s are already without
John Moore
, who is week-to-week with an upper-body injury. A player like
Connor Clifton
is a good fallback option, but a physical blueliner like Miller is a valuable piece during a grueling playoff run.
Boston piles on points without regulars:
When you take out go-to skaters like
Brad Marchand, Charlie McAvoy, Zdeno Chara, David Krejci
and
Chris Wagner
, you may just have to temper your expectations with what you’re going to get out of Game 81 of a long regular season.
Still, even with a number of mismatched lines, Boston continued to rack up the points following Thursday’s 3-0 win. Aside from losing Miller, there are plenty of positives to take away from the game, whether it be a strong showing from
Jaroslav Halak
in net, a return to form for
Matt Grzelcyk
or a solid debut from
Zach Senyshyn
.
An extra two points in the standings during the first week of April may not factor into the grand scheme of things, but Boston is slowly easing some of those pre-postseason jitters after dropping a pair of games last weekend in disheartening fashion.
FOUR UP
Joakim Nordstrom:
Nordstrom has continued to hold his own on a reworked fourth line with
Noel Acciari
and
David Backes
— firing one past
Alex Stalock
after a great poke check by Acciari lead to a Grade-A look in the slot. He’s by no means an offensive dynamo, but the winger is now up to four points (two goals, two assists) in his last 11 games. The Nordstrom-Acciari-Backes line was strong all night — holding a 9-4 edge in shots on goal during their 10:00 of 5v5 TOI together.
?GOAL!?
Joakim Nordstrom puts the first goal of the night on the board!
Nordstrom — Acciari (8:21) #NHLBruins 1#MNWild 0 pic.twitter.com/wvrI8Ph8VP
— Boston Bruins on CLNS (@BruinsCLNS) April 5, 2019
Matt Grzelcyk:
After showing a bit of rust in his return to game action last week, Grzelcyk has started to once again assert himself more and more, especially in the offensive zone. During the 19:58 of 5v5 TOI in which Grzelcyk was out on the ice Thursday, the Bruins held a commanding 23-12 edge in shot attempts and 15-7 lead in shots on goal. With Miller out, Grzelcyk logged the most ice time at 23:02.
Jaroslav Halak:
In what very well could be his final start of the regular season, Halak got back on track after posting an .869 save percentage over his last three appearances. The backup netminder stopped all 26 shots that came his way on Thursday in what was his fifth shutout of the year.
Zach Senyshyn:
The rookie winger’s first goal up in the NHL might have been an empty netter, but Senyshyn was solid in his debut with Boston. While he wasn’t able to show off his wheels too often, the 22-year-old skater still wasn’t knocked for making too many mistakes and most importantly, didn’t try to do too much. Nice moment for the kid.
Zach Senyshyn buries the empty-netter in his first NHL game. 3-0 Bruins. pic.twitter.com/w4tG9w4Dbe
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) April 5, 2019
ONE DOWN
Trent Frederic:
Didn’t see too much of Frederic in his return to the NHL level, as he finished with a team-low 8:34 of ice time with one shot on goal. During his time out on the ice, Boston only landed two shots on goal.
PLAY OF THE GAME
No Marchand, no problem for Boston’s top line, as
Jake DeBrusk
fed
David Pastrnak
with the sweet feed en route to his 38th goal of the season.
David Pastrnak’s 38th of the season, sick assist @JDebrusk 2-0 #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/sgQLLp4NEZ
— Marina Molnar (@mkmolnar) April 5, 2019
PARTING THOUGHT
Alex Stalock
was doing his best impression of a goalie in “NHL Hitz” all night for the Wild:
Alex Stalock - making late-season hockey bearable. pic.twitter.com/FpY1r5C5vO
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) April 5, 2019
Alex Stalock, again. pic.twitter.com/nsGKZw9qLr
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) April 5, 2019
LOOKING AHEAD
The Bruins will close out the regular season back on home ice this weekend, as Boston will host the Tampa Bay Lightning for a matinee matchup on Saturday. Puck drop is set for 1 p.m. While
Brad Marchand, Charlie McAvoy, Zdeno Chara, David Krejci
and
Chris Wagner
all did not play against the Wild, Cassidy
did note that there’s a good chance most of that group will get back into the lineup against Tampa.