The Bruins went on a wild ride with the high-flying Colorado Avalanche on Monday at Ball Arena and had their chances to come away with two points.
But they though scratched back to tie the game in the third period and then had a power play in overtime, they just couldn’t quite close the deal.
After a thrilling 65 minutes of hockey, Valeri Nichushkin scored the only shootout goal, snapping a wrist shot past Jeremy Swayman with a walk-off goal for the 4-3 Colorado win at Ball Arena.
This was a fun one.
Trailing 3-2 in the third period, the B’s tied it on a great shift by the Charlie Coyle line at 5:46. First Brad Marchnd carried the puck into the zone all by himself and hung onto the puck until his linemates changed on. Then he and Coyle cycled the puck brilliantly until Coyle connected with Marchand on a backdoor play for his second of the game and 17th of the season. It was also his 899th career point, pushing him ahead of Rick Middleton for fifth place on the B’s all-time scoring list.
That further charged a game that was already amped up to begin with, as the teams roared up and down the ice for the next few minutes.
Playing with Brandon Carlo, who left the game in the second period with upper body injury, the B’s had to kill a Matt Grzelcyk high-sticking penalty with 7:31 left in regulation and they did so without giving up much.
Then Hampus Lindholm was called for interference with 2:43 left and, again, they killed it, thanks in no small part to a great blocker save by Swayman on Cale Makar.
That got it it to overtime, when it was the B’s turn to get a power play when Logan O’Connor held Pavel Zacha with 1:58 left but they could not put the game away and lost it on the skills competition.
The two teams traded power-play goals in the goals, with the B’s scoring first and the Avs coming back to even it up before the period was out.
The shots were lopsided in Colorado’s favor early on, but of the first four shots the B’s got on Alexander Georgiev, three of them were Grade A chances. The B’s took the lead on the fifth one on the PP. After a couple of unsuccessful zone entries, Brad Marchand made one twirl above the left circle before cleanly beating Georgiev with a snap shot from the top of the circle at 11:11.
Jeremy Swayman gave up a half dozen goals in his previous outing against Pittsburgh, but he played like he wanted to avenge that performance in the first. With Colorado throwing 14 pucks at him in the opening 20 minutes, he made several high quality saves, but there was little he could do when the Av’s two stars teamed up. With Charlie Coyle in the box, Nathan MacKinnon found Mikko Rantanen at the top of the crease for a redirect. The initial shot went off the crossbar, but Rantanen was able to push it over the line at 16:13.
The B’s would soon be chasing the score early in the second period when they committed a gaffe. Kevin Shattenkirk and Pavel Zacha were both going back to their own end to retrieve a puck and appeared to be in good shape when the defenseman grabbed possession just inside the B’s zone. But Shattenkirk unexpectedly turned back into Zacha and lost the puck. Logan O’Connor was right there to to pounce on it, move in alone on Swayman and give Colorado the 2-1 lead at 2:23.
The B’s drew back even at 10:05. John Beecher was scratched in the previous game and started the game like he didn’t want to be scratched again. He blew up Devon Toews in the first period on his best hit of the season then tied the game in the second. Danton Heinen carried the puck behind the net before slinging a wraparound attempt. It produced a big rebound for Beecher, who popped home his fifth of the year.
But the Avs nudged ahead again before the period was out. As the B’s unforced errors mounted and they started spending too much time in their own zone, Beecher lost a faceoff to Ryan Johansen to Swayman’s left and the puck went back to Sam Malinski at the blue line. Moving to the middle of the line, Malinski wristed a shot that made it through a couple of bodies to beat Swayman with 2:04 left in the period.
Making matters worse for the B’s, Brandon Carlo was lost to an upper body injury midway through the second period and was unable to return to the game.
