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2021 NHL Playoffs, Boston Bruins, Brad Marchand , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Mr. Overtime Marchand beats Varlamov in Sudden Death, B’s Take 2-1 Series Lead

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Brad Marchand is a winner.

In Game 3, with the scored deadlocked at 1-1 and the ice tilted against the Boston Bruins early in the extra frame in their second-round series against the NY Islanders, Marchand took a Charlie McAvoy pass inside the offensive blue line, skated down the left wall and zipped a high shot that whizzed over Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov’s shoulder, hit the corner of the far post and crossbar and ricocheted down and into the cage.

Boom.

Just like that, a game that the Bruins deserved to win in regulation, but had lost all momentum in late and in the early minutes of overtime, was over on Marchand’s fifth goal (in 8 playoff games) and third career playoff sudden death tally.

It moved him into a tie with Mel “Sudden Death” Hill, for second all-time in franchise history. Keep in mind- Hill scored all three of his OT goals in the same 1939 semifinal playoff series against the NY Rangers, getting extra session strikes in Games 1 and 2, then the deciding triple OT tally in Game 7. The B’s went on to win the Stanley Cup.

One could argue, that given how much more jump the Islanders had in overtime last night, Marchand’s goal was the embodiment of the term- sudden death. Just like that, it was over, as No. 63 circled the net, arms raised and fists pumping the air, while Islanders forward Kyle Palmieri (who scored his own wondrous OT snipe in Game 1 of the 2021 playoffs against the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tristan Jarry) looked on in dejected befuddlement.

“Any puck, especially in overtime, has a chance to go in,” Marchand said. “Can’t pass up a shot, and that’s another example of it. I tried to get it on net and it found its way in.”

How did that go in?

How. Did. That. Go. In?

Short answer is: It’s hockey.

Longer answer: Shooters shoot, and winners win.

Even longer one: The Bruins lead their series 2 games to 1 with a chance to go up 3-1 on Long Island Saturday night.

Marchand has been helping the Bruins win big hockey games in spring for a decade now- he arrived in 2011 and his performance in the Stanley Cup Final series against the Vancouver Canucks keyed Boston to its first championship parade in 39 years. The B’s haven’t won another one since, but two other trips to the final and 102 career playoff points, puts Marchand in select company with current teammates David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron. They are the NHL’s only active trio with more than 100 career playoff points, a nod to just how good this Bruins organization has been since the three of them started playing full-time on the roster in 2010-11.

Marchand is highly polarizing, having entered the league as a rat who stirred up controversy in junior as a skilled, productive player who didn’t always put the best interests of the team ahead of his own. In the years since he established himself first on the B’s bottom line before working himself into bona fide NHL superstar status and the first player since Joe Thornton in 2003 to notch a 100-point season two years ago, Marchand has grown and matured. He’s always been a good guy and teammate, it’s just that most outsiders didn’t know it. Like many young, even immature players with a chip on their shoulder- and Marchand had a big chip as a player who had first-round talent but slipped to the third round of the 2006 NHL draft- the public persona didn’t jive with who he was behind the scenes in Boston.

He’s no saint- some of the things he did earlier in his NHL career were unacceptable and hurt people. The league held him accountable for that and he paid a price for it. And while some would say it wasn’t enough, that was how the NHL chose to handle things. You can’t defend it, but you can at least acknowledge that for the most part, he changed the way he plays.

Several things did not change, however: Marchand always put in the work. He practiced and played hard. And, as his career progressed, the results followed. After developing a reputation as a pure agitator (read: dirty player that everyone loves to hate), along with a penchant for streaky scoring in his first several seasons, Marchand has toned the self-destructive on-ice behavior down while growing into one of the most consistent and dangerous scorers in the NHL over the past five years. It didn’t happen overnight, and there are times when he can be pulled down into the kind of negative shenanigans that don’t help, but last night was a microcosm of who he is as a 33-year-old veteran and one of Boston’s purest clutch players, not only in the modern era, but perhaps of all time.

Marchand knows he plays on the edge and that sometimes, his emotions and the devil on his shoulder get the best of him. Last night, he took another bad penalty. But, the Boston PK had his back and killed it. He then returned the favor with a shot that ended the debate about who was the better team on this night.

The OT goal was the second of this spring for Marchand- he tallied in Game 2 against Washington. It’s just the third of his career, but is proof that he’s a worthy addition of Krejci (whose 120 career playoff points lead the current B’s and are second only to Hall of Fame icon Ray Bourque) and Bergeron (who has 119 points and leads the Boston franchise with four career OT strikes in the postseason).

Boston fans no doubt relish that the rest of the NHL let out a collective groan, perhaps threw their TV remote, or kicked a chair when Marchand’s shot went in last night. Anyone but him…please, Hockey Gods…anyone but HIM!

And, as great as the shot was, you can’t really fault Varlamov. Craig Smith’s first period goal on a nifty feed from Taylor Hall was an absolute bullet. The ghost of Terry Sawchuk, Patrick Roy AND Martin Brodeur all in the crease together wouldn’t have stopped that shot. After that, it was lights out for the rest of the 60-minute contest.

He was tremendous in regulation, especially in the third period, when the B’s were peppering him with shots from all areas of the ice, but he held his team in, long enough for Mat Barzal to score his first goal of the playoffs to tie it with some 5 minutes and change left in the game. It was a nice play by Barzal, but let’s be honest- Connor Clifton took the wrong angle and Chris Wagner stood beside him and ineffectively reached in with his stick rather than put his body into Barzal and knock him away from the doorstep. But hey- credit where due. Barzal is one player you don’t want to let whack away at a puck in tight and he made the most of the time and space he was given.

After that, the Islanders seized momentum and were helped by a mind-numbingly bad Sean Kuraly cross-checking penalty on Palmieri with 2:15 remaining in the third. Even if Palmieri got away with something in a battle seconds earlier, Kuraly who is rapidly burning away the goodwill of past strong playoff performances (exhibit A for why you don’t pay a lot to role players for past performances, btw), had no excuse for putting his team in that spot.

Thanks to Tuukka Rask, whom we haven’t yet mentioned in this space today, but who got his 6th win with some tremendous saves late and in OT on Barzal, the score remained tied, setting the stage for Marchand’s heroics.

“That one from there finally found its way in,” Bruce Cassidy quipped, underscoring the volatile nature of a playoff game in the NHL.

Marchand finished third in regular season scoring and won some respect and consideration for league MVP honors, even though he has no shot to beat out Connor McDavid. He’s fast, hard, skilled and most of all- productive. He’s the one player that fans around the league will scream about never wanting on their team publicly, but secretly would kill for. He’s on a great contract, and like Bergeron, is playing better hockey in his 30’s than he did in his 20’s.

Winners win.

Brad Marchand is a winner.

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Brandon Carlo exited the game after taking a hit from Islanders grinder Cal Clutterbuck. Boston’s update on him after the game sounded optimistic, but make no mistake- if the big, mobile shutdown D is out for an extended period of time, the B’s will have their hands full. Assuming he can’t go, and that’s probably the right answer based on what we know. That means Jarred Tinordi or Urho Vaakanainen is next man up.

Game 2 goat (not the Tom Brady kind of GOAT) Jeremy Lauzon rebounded from a tough Game 2 with a solid defensive performance and no glaring mistakes or miscues. He has to keep things simple and the coaches showed a lot of trust in him to go back with No. 55. Trust…key word. Young players and fans don’t always understand that when it comes to hockey and coaching, trust is pretty much it. You want to play more? Earn your coach’s trust. You want to play less or not at all? Break that trust. That’s it. So, when fans get on social media and want to know why the B’s could possibly give Lauzon another shot in the lineup after so disastrous an outcome the game before, there’s your answer. They trust him. You aren’t there. Neither am I. None of us save those in the Bruins room knows or understands. So, you may not like it, but the world doesn’t work the way we want it to, sometimes. Cassidy and Co. trust Lauzon. For better or worse. And last night, he rewarded that trust.

Elsewhere in the NHL…

Three jeers for the league in giving Winnipeg Jets veteran Mark Scheifele a four-game suspension for his charge on Montreal’s Jake Evans Wednesday night. Look, it was an unnecessary hit, and you could even be justified in calling it a bad hit, but the outcome is what is being judged here. If you have to suspend him, and the NHL probably did given the outrage, give him a game and move on. But the farce of this all is that this same league watched Washington’s Tom Wilson grab a star player from behind, slam him to the ice, end his season, then mock the response and show zero contrition. The league’s response? A $5,000 fine…and the scorn and figurative black eye for another mind-numbingly incomprehensible decision.

With supplemental disciplinary decisions like this one, clearly aimed to address the abject failure of dealing with Wilson vs. Artemi Panarin, where the NHL failed to protect one of its own, you can’t help but feel that Director of Player Safety George Parros was under orders on this one to make an example out of Scheifele, but if that is indeed the case here, it’s a massive and unjust overcorrection. We all feel for Evans, but we felt for Panarin, too. What about Carlo? His suffering and loss of games to another concussion from Wilson’s forearm to the head was deemed worthy of a seven-game ban for a known and repeat offender. Now, every time Carlo takes a hit, we have to hold our collective breath, wondering if this could be it for his career. He’s 24 years old, by the way.

The NHL’s real efforts need to be on changing the culture. Scheifele has not made a career of running guys and injuring them. He made a mistake and will now pay for it. But what message does that send to the nimrods of the league who repeatedly cross the line and see no major impact to their livelihood?

We look forward to a 25+-game ban for Wilson the next time said repeat offender hurts someone. After all, a player with no track record like Scheifele got four games for his first offense, right? Sadly, not holding our breath on that one… The Capitals and NHL by extension, have been enablers for Wilson’s antics and he shows little sign that he’s going to change his ways.

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Fallout: 5 Observations About Game 1 and What the Bruins Need to Do About Them

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The 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs have begun and aside from the first three contests all going to overtime, there are always winners and losers in hockey, especially come springtime. The Boston Bruins lost Game 1 on a Nic Dowd deflected shot from T.J. Oshie that he got a piece of before the puck rolled in, breaking a 2-2 deadlock in the first extra session. It was a game there for the taking from the B’s perspective, but they instead find themselves in an 0-1 hole. Here are some observations about the game and what the team can do about it to generate a better outcome in Game 2.

1. The Bruins were unable to match Washington’s physicality to start the game. The Capitals came at the Bruins hard, leveling them with big, clean hits early on and dictating the pace/tempo. This in turn fired up the home crowd. Boston was able weather the storm, but to set the conditions for a different result tonight, they will need to take the initiative and be ready for the runs that the heavier Capitals players are sure to take at them. One way they can mitigate that is by going to the net as hard as possible and initiating some scrums with Caps players to take away the momentum gained by big, open-ice hits. It’s a fine line, so the B’s will have to make sure their sticks don’t get up or that they don’t do anything undisciplined like running Craig Anderson, but with the proverbial wind in their faces, they need a better start, and earning the first lead of the series wouldn’t hurt.

2. 21 missed shots against a goalie playing in just his fourth contest of the season. Wayne Gretzky famously said that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. The same holds true of shots attempted that miss the net entirely, and that played a significant role in Boston’s loss Saturday night. Whether the B’s had first game jitters or the Caps simply disrupted their time and space, the fact of the matter is- the visiting team failed to take advantage of a golden opportunity after Jake DeBrusk chased starter Vitek Vanecek from the game with his goal that forced the netminder to do an awkward split and incur a lower body injury. Another way to look at Anderson coming in is that it was a blessing in disguise for Washington. Anderson is a playoff veteran with a career .929 save percentage, knocking Boston out of the first round of the postseason in Bruce Cassidy’s first year. Either way, the ghosts of Hardy Astrom and Andre Racicot would have won a game in which his opponent didn’t force him to make 21 stops- the B’s made it easy on Anderson, who if anything, lacks sharpness and timing in his game. The Bruins must focus their efforts on shooting pucks at every opportunity and avoid falling into the trap of making the extra pass or trying to make the perfect shot- get it to the net early and often and bring the forwards down below the dots as much as possible to capitalize (no pun intended) on rebounds and get some dirty goals. The most important thing for the Bruins right now is to not let Anderson get comfortable- he’s only going to get better as he settles in, so figure out a way to pepper him early or the slog only becomes more difficult. They’d be better off against Vanecek to be honest (and Ilya Samsonov is out of COVID protocol and an option for the Caps as well).

3. The top lines didn’t have their best stuff. That is putting it mildly. Whether mishandling pucks, missing on passes, turning pucks over or generally failing to get anything going offensively, the first and second forward units were a no-show, and that is a recipe for a loss for any team. Brad Marchand, in particular, had a rough one; he’s so fast, slippery and dynamic, but for whatever reason, he was unable to handle the puck cleanly all night and made bad decisions with his reads and subsequent passes. Patrice Bergeron worked hard, but wasn’t able to get to the net consistently, while David Pastrnak had some perimeter shots, but was unable to find the quiet ice for one-timers and quick release shots that make him so dangerous. The second unit, aside from Taylor Hall drawing several penalties at the offensive blue line with his fast feet and quick hands, was even less effective. If playoff David Krejci is the best Krejci, then the B’s are right to expect more from him. There is simply too much talent, intelligence and effort on that line with Craig Smith for the second line to not generate sustained offensive pressure. That DeBrusk and Nick Ritchie scored the Boston goals to generate secondary scoring for a team that has long relied on its top forwards to create the offense was a good sign, but even the most ardent defenders of the B’s have to take a step back and recognize that they simply didn’t get it done. It isn’t like they were creating chances and Anderson was snuffing them out- they looked sluggish and ineffective, playing most of their hockey on the perimeter and not able to get to the middle of the ice where the real goals in this game are scored. Whatever happened in Game 1 is done, things have to change tonight, or you can expect the team to return to Boston in a bigger hole. We think Marchand and Co. are primed for a big comeback and if not, Krejci’s unit could ably carry the offensive load- they have it in them to do it.

4. Stick on puck, stick on puck, stick on puck! The Boston defense, especially the Jeremy Lauzon-Kevan Miller pairing, struggled with this, allowing the Capitals to enter the zone cleanly too many times. On the flip side, the Caps disrupted Boston’s rushes for the most part, because their defenders gapped up well and aggressively used their sticks to disrupt the north-south flow. The most effective defensemen in the game all share one trait in common: they have a “good stick,” meaning that they are able to negate scoring chances consistently using their lumber and not necessarily their body. The Boston defense as a whole needs to focus on making sure their stick on puck is better in Game 2 and not allow Washington to simply get to the net uncontested. One example of this in Game 1 was the Tom Wilson goal. When Charlie McAvoy broke his stick at the Washington blue line and allowed the odd-man rush, he was without his most important tool to defend his own net, but Matt Grzelcyk had a chance to break up the play had he employed a more aggressive stick on puck approach. As he backed in, he may have thought that Daniel Sprong posed a threat on the far side, but with Sean Kuraly beating feet back, there was a split-second window when he could have knocked the puck off of Oshie’s stick *before* he made the pass to Wilson for the score. It’s easy to second guess at this point, but a more aggressive defensive play as opposed to backing in and giving Oshie the ice in front of him uncontested was a key factor in Washington drawing first blood and seizing momentum. Boston’s overall defense was sound, but it is the little things that can turn the tide in Game 2, and better stick on puck won’t hurt. As an aside- Lauzon took a shot off the hand and is questionable tonight, meaning we are likely to see Connor Clifton in the lineup to take his place. Jarred Tinordi is another option, but with Clifton’s postseason experience, he’s got the edge if Lauzon can’t go.

5. More movement on the power play. Yes, the B’s got a power play goal from Ritchie and held Washington’s top units with the man advantage off the scoring ledger, but you can bet the Capitals will find their mojo. To counter, Boston’s power play unit simply must get better and is starts with improved movement. In Game 1, the PP was largely static, especially on the point with Grzelcyk not taking advantage of the time and space to walk laterally along the blue line to open up the penalty killers down low and create better shooting lanes (hat tip to Reed Duthie for that observation, btw). The B’s got their one power play tally due to a sheer effort and hustle play by Smith to win a footrace and keep the puck in the zone, but the reality is- the man advantage was never much of a threat in this one, when just one other goal would have secured a regulation victory for Boston. Any successful power play starts with effective movement to loosen up the PKers, and then gets pucks to the net so that the PP can employ the extra player to max advantage. If you don’t force the opposition out of their structure, they can simply sit back and clog the high danger areas and keep the puck to the outside. Its about movement and puck possession- forcing the killers to move and expend energy, while getting them out of position to create shooting/passing lanes and then capitalizing on the outnumbered situation. The Bruins didn’t do this enough and were fortunate to get the one goal. If they don’t alter their approach, they won’t have much success with the man advantage in the series. Another Reed suggestion- consider using Mike Reilly (who struggled with his defensive play Saturday) up top on the PP where he can use his lateral agility and vision to generate that movement.

You will note that goaltending is not one of the five observations. Tuukka Rask wasn’t terrible, but he wasn’t great, either. He can and should be better, but there is no reason to spend any more time pointing that out. He gave his team a chance, and while the optics on the winning goal wasn’t great, it’s a team game, and for our money- the above factors had more with the Bruins losing a close-run overtime game than the inability of the veteran netminder to make that stop. Again, not absolving Rask of his part in the loss here, it’s just that he could have been lights out in OT, and Washington still could have won the game because the B’s were deficient in other areas. That’s hockey.

Onto Game 2- no one ever said winning a playoff series in the NHL was easy.