The Bruins ramped up their prep for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Thursday when they held an intrasquad scrimmage in front of a sold-out TD Garden. David Backes’ two goals paved the way in a 5-3 victory for Team Black over Team White.
Here are a couple of quick takeaways from tonight’s scrimmage:
Don’t get caught up in the box score
All in all, I wouldn’t read too much into individual performances from tonight’s scrimmage, which ended with a 5-3 victory for Team Black over Team White.
More than anything, tonight’s intrasquad matchup was a way to shake out some of the cobwebs on a Bruins’ club that’s still three full days away from Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final against St. Louis.
They might not have had “Zombie Nation” blaring on the speakers when they lit the lamp, but Thursday’s matchup was as close as one could get to replicating a game-day environment — with over 17,000 fans filling out the seats at TD Garden for the run-through and the club taking part in both warmups and a standard intermission break between a pair of 25-minute periods.
David Pastrnak and Backes scored two goals apiece for Team White and Team Black, respectively, while Tuukka Rask only played in the first half. He relinquished a pair of goals, but also denied Danton Heinen on a shorthanded breakaway. David Krejci was sent home from TD Garden in the early going after dealing with a bit of a fever — but it was more of a precautionary move than anything, per Bruce Cassidy.
As a whole, it was a productive 50 minutes of game action, with the tail end of both periods featuring the players running through different set plays and situational drills, including stints on the power play. Still, take the tangible production from players like Pastrnak, Rask, Backes and others with a grain of salt given that both teams largely avoided contact and the overall pace was a bit tempered when compared to what has been the norm this postseason.
Here are all the goal scorers on the night:
Team White: David Pastrnak (2), Patrice Bergeron
Team Black: David Backes (2), Peter Cehlarik, Karson Kuhlman, Anton Blidh
Bruins dodge a bullet with Marchand
With only a few more days separating the Bruins from Game 1 on Monday night, the last thing the B’s need right now is an injury to pop up out of the blue.
Bruins fans went through a couple of heart palpitations during the opening minutes of Thursday’s scrimmage, as Brad Marchand appeared to hurt his left hand/arm after bumping into Connor Clifton down low.
The B’s winger immediately skated over to the bench, taking off his glove and flexing his hand for a couple of minutes before eventually returning to the game. Thankfully for the B’s, Marchand didn’t seem any worse for wear — as he set up Pastrnak’s first goal of the night in the closing minutes of the first stanza.
“Injury risk was our biggest concern tonight,” Cassidy said. “It will be Saturday when we practice at our normal time and Sunday. You keep your fingers crossed. He’s fine. He just bumped into Clifton in front of the net and jammed his hand or something. So he kept playing and he’s fine. There’s no issue there.”
TD Garden is going to be rocking on Monday
If this is how loud TD Garden gets for a pre-series scrimmage, then Monday is just going to be absurd. Quite the statement for the barn to get sold out for a matchup like this.
Hell of an ovation from the TD Garden crowd. What a sight. pic.twitter.com/dGm0JAOKJ8
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) May 24, 2019
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— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) May 23, 2019