The Undermanned Bruins Find a Way to Hold Off the Golden Knights, 2-1 at TD Garden

David Backes is out for eight weeks after colon surgery and David Krejci missed his fifth straight game with a back injury so it's understandable that Boston (5-3-3) wasn't expecting a work of art as they hosted Vegas (8-4-0) tonight at TD Garden. It wasn't an instant classic unless you love boring defensive hockey but the B's will happily take the two points as they beat the Golden Knights 2-1 thanks to goals by Riley Nash and Sean Kuraly. Since Vegas had nearly blanked Boston back on Oct. 15 (3-1 at T-Mobile Arena) in their first ever meeting, the Bruins needed to do whatever it took to avoid the series sweep (which would have been Vegas' first).

The Golden Knights weren't feeling sorry for the Bruins' recent rash of injuries since they are currently starting their fourth goaltender of the young season-your boy Maxime Lagace (26 saves)-backed up by Dylan Ferguson who was just called up from juniors. Having to play four goalies in less than a month of existence is borderline insane. The B's are the same club that was nearly shut out by their former first round bust Malcolm Subban so I guess we should have expected a similar pop gun performance by their middling offense that is trying to find their way with one legitimate forward line at the moment.

After a scoreless first period, Boston got on the board first as Nash's first shot hit the post but then he stuck with it long enough to knock the loose puck in for his first goal of the season at 3:24 of the second. Austin Czarnik (recalled earlier today from Providence) notched his first assist of the season and Torey Krug had the other helper (only his 2nd of the season). The Golden Knights answered a little over six minutes later as Cody Eakin one timed a pass from Nate Schmidt for his second goal of the season. Bruins rookie Jake DeBrusk coughed up the puck in his own end, putting his teammate Tuukka Rask (28 saves) in a vulnerable position.

Boston's penalty kill went 3-for-3 this evening and Kuraly scored the game-winning goal at 9:53 of the third period after some fine work by Krug and DeBrusk. Krug had the initial shot that was blocked in front but DeBrusk fought down low to force a save by Lagace and Kuraly crashed the net (and ran into the post) leading to the memorable tally (his 1st NHL regular season goal; he had two including the 2OT GWG vs. Ottawa in Game 5 last spring).

On Saturday night (7, NESN), Boston hosts Washington (6-6-1) who is off to a puzzling start themselves to say the least. Backes had surgery today and I doubt that Krejci will be back by then so the B's will have to continue to find a way to grab points while they have this mish-mash of a lineup. The good news is that even when the Black and Gold aren't playing particularly well in 2017-18, multiple times they have still recorded points when it was less than their best effort-Monday's 4-3 shootout loss at Columbus (9-4-0) being a perfect example after they trailed 3-0 but rallied for the still disappointing point.

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