One of the standard elements of this wonderful season for the Bruins has been numerous guys going down with injuries, only to have countless other teammates step up in their absence. Tuukka Rask was a late scratch with what B's head coach Bruce Cassidy termed a "very minor injury" so Khudobin was a last-minute starter. More worrisome was that rookie stud defenseman Charlie McAvoy skated a grand total of one shift (for 37 seconds) before calling it a night with a lower-body injury. The team has a scheduled day off on Sunday so we'll have to wait and see if he's out there for practice on Monday. Props to the remaining five defenseman for Boston who all played at least 20:04 (Brandon Carlo) and as much as 24:46 (Torey Krug since there were 6 Bruins power plays).
The Canadiens took a 1-0 lead at 9:16 of the first period as Kevan Miller threw an outlet pass right to Brendan Gallagher aka Dollar Store Marchand and he buried a shot past Khudobin for his 23rd goal of the season. Khudobin certainly wasn't as busy as Niemi, Montreal outshot Boston 12-10 in the first but proceeded to get bombarded (40-16) over the final 42:06 of action. It was more of a quality over quantity type night for Khudobin who at one point late in the third period had to ditch his mask (to get a whistle) because two of the straps had snapped.
Boston has now won its last six games overall vs. Montreal and they huffed and puffed for most of this one to earn the two points. David Pastrnak hit the post early in the first when the Bruins had a 3-on-1. Boston trailed 1-0 after the first period and couldn't convert a 2-man advantage that they had for 44 seconds in the second period. Going into the third, the records did not favor the home team since they were 2-13-3 when trailing after two while Montreal was 17-1-1 when leading after two. Jonathan Drouin was called for delay of game for flipping the puck over the glass in his own end which finally broke his team's back. Nick Holden played a perfect slap pass to DeBrusk to tip in for his 13th goal of the season with Torey Krug picking up the second assist.
The Bruins continued to dominate in the extra frame as they outshot the Canadiens 4-0 as they never really let Montreal gain possession of the puck. Ironically, Marchand's goal came about with Cassidy shuffling some new players onto the ice. He showed all the power in his small frame by wheeling around the net to gain a good shooting angle where he fired a low shot by Niemi in traffic. Krug and Brian Gionta had the assists on Marchand's 25th goal of the season and his 10th career regular season overtime game-winner.
Boston went 3-0 this week at home without Patrice Bergeron (including 2 OT wins) and they'll try to go 3-0 next week as well with Detroit (26-28-10) coming here on Tuesday (7, NESN) followed by Philadelphia (34-20-11) on Thursday (7, NESN) and Chicago (28-29-8) wrapping things up on Saturday afternoon (1, NESN). It's hard not to feel really good about this team, considering how many of these seemingly improbable wins they have pulled out in 2017-18. The moves that they made at the trade deadline have only solidified a group that has legitimate Cup aspirations. Time to start drinking the Black and Gold Kool-Aid folks, it's delicious.
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