Bruins Bop Penguins 4-1

This isn’t going to be much of a game summary. Then again, it wasn’t much of a game, at least from a Penguins standpoint.

In the wake of Jim Rutherford’s resignation, I was hoping our guys would pull together and come up with an inspired effort. You know…kind of like “win one for the Gipper”…only win one for JR.

Wishful thinking. The Bruins had their way with our flightless waterfowl from start to finish en route to a convincing 4-1 triumph.  They were everything our guys aspire to be but weren’t…fast, aggressive, structurally sound and deadly.

On the flip side of the coin, we were pretty much SOP (same old Pens). We started slowly and fell behind (gee, there’s a surprise). Trailing, 2-1, going into the second period, we put on a mild push to open the frame. That lasted until Penguins-killer Patrice Bergeron scored the first of his two goals on a nifty backhander from the doorstep just past the eight-minute mark.

After that, it was pretty much all she wrote. And all I’m going to write, too. A snoozer of a game summary to match the Pens’ snoozer of an effort.

Puckpourri

The Bruins outshot the Pens, 20-17, and dominated the faceoff circle (again), winning 63 percent of the draws.

Tristan Jarry started his fourth straight game and yielded four goals on 20 shots for an unsightly .800 save percentage. Yet it’s hard to fault him on any of the goals except maybe the last, as the Pens’ undermanned defense virtually collapsed around him.

Prior to the game, the Pens promoted defenseman Kevin Czuczman and forward Sam Lafferty (yay) from the taxi squad. Forwards Anthony Angello and Frederick Gaudreau and defenseman Will Reilly were recalled from the Baby Pens and placed on the taxi squad. New addition Yannick Weber cleared waivers, but was caught in a snowstorm and wasn’t available for the game.

In the can’t-take-any-more-bad-news department, defenseman Brian Dumoulin will be out week-to-week with an unspecified injury. Fellow blueliner Marcus Pettersson, initially week-to-week, was placed on injured reserve. Sheesh!

Rubbing salt in the wound, the equally depleted first-place Capitals rallied from a three-goal deficit to hammer the Islanders, 6-3, thanks to a two-goal effort by ex-Pen Conor Sheary. Oh, and Justin Schultz picked up two assists and was a plus-two. In eight games with the Caps, he’s registered two goals, six points and a plus-nine. Double sheesh!

Opinyinz

I only took two positives away from last night’s game. One very bright light is the play of rookie defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph. Skating alongside Kris Letang on the top pairing, Joseph didn’t look the least bit out of place. As I mentioned in a previous article, the kid can skate and handle the puck and is positionally sound. He displayed a physical side, too, rocking one of the Bruins with a solid body check in the neutral zone. When was the last time you saw a Pens defenseman do that?

I’ve been very critical of the Cody Ceci signing. But the former first-round pick has held up surprisingly well while eating a lot of minutes (23:45 last night). He made a really nice individual play to score our lone goal, nabbing a loose puck along the boards and barreling into the high slot, where he beat Jaroslav Halak with a hard wrister. Ceci does possess a good shot and he’s been an offensive threat in the past (10 and seven-goal seasons for Ottawa). Maybe he’ll rediscover his scoring touch.

I won’t call this a positive because he was victimized on the first two Bruins goals. But Czuczman played in his first NHL game since 2014. A feel-good story for a guy who’s hung in there and paid his dues. I’m sure he was thrilled.