Two third period goals lift Wings over B's, Boston's 16-game point streak snapped
It's been a long time since we've had to deal with one of these.
The Bruins lost to the Wings 3-2 to snap their 16-game point streak. The loss also snaps Boston's 9-game road winning streak. Both streaks began way back on March 2nd.
The Bruins certainly had their legs in the game, as effort was never an issue throughout the 60 minutes.
Some controversy was unleashed when a Torey Krug goal was disallowed for a phantom interference call that never happened. The refs waived off the goal after saying Zdeno Chara interfered with Wings goalie Jimmy Howard.
But the Hockey Gods got it right when Johnny Boychuck blasted home his 4th of the year to put the Bruins ahead 1-0 with 4 minutes to go in the period.
The Bruins held the lead for most of the second period before Tomas Tatar ripped home his 19th of the year at 4:45 to tie the game at one. Riley Sheahan was screening Rask in front, and Tatar's bomb beat him on the far side.
The Bruins had a flurry of chances late in the period, but Wings goalie Jimmy Howard kept his team in the game. Both Loui Eriksson and Chris Kelly had premium chances in the final minutes to get another on the board, but Howard shut the door each time. At one point in the period, the Bruins were outshooting the Wings 25-9.
A Tomas Jurco boarding penalty on Johnny Boychuck way late in the period gave the Bruins 1:57 of power play time with a fresh sheet of ice heading into the third. The Bruins took advantage of the chance and made it 2-1 1:10 into the period.
Carl Soderberg beat Howard for his 16th of the year to put Boston up 2-1. Patrice Bergeron played a nice give-and-go with Soderberg that drew the defense and opened up the space for
Carl Soderberg to blow it by Howard to give the Bruins the 2-1 lead.
Carl put the B's up 2-1 in the 3rd period (via T. Ding) |
The Bruins did what they could to put another puck past Howard, but they couldn't get the task done, and instead, the Red Wings did.
Tomas Jurco tied the game at 11:06 when he put home a loose puck after a mad scramble in front of Rask. Everyone lost sight of the puck in the mass of sticks and skates before it slid over to the waiting Jurco. He made no mistake in slamming it home into the open net for his 6th of the year.
The Bruins had done a great job all night keeping the highly talented Gustav Nyquist under wraps, but one small mistake changed all that. Nyquist took advantage of a bad line change from Zdeno Chara and Johnny Boychuck and barreled down on Rask after blowing by Chara. Nyquist ripped his 28th of the year and gave the Wings the 3-2 lead.
That was all the Wings needed to steal the game away from the Bruins. The loss snaps Boston's 9-game road winning streak, dating back to March 2nd at the New York Rangers.
The loss snaps Boston's 16-game point streak dating back to that same Rangers game.
It's been a long time coming for the Bruins to finish a game without registering at least a point. The first star should go to Jimmy Howard, as he was the reason Detroit was able to hang on through this game. Boston outshot the Wings in all three periods, and 35-20 for the game.
The Bruins have no time to sour over the loss, as they play tomorrow night in Toronto.