The Boston Bruins needed their defensemen to step up after Brandon Carlo exited in the second period with an upper-body injury, and while the Avalanche walked away with the shootout win, Boston was happy with its defensive effort.
The Boston Bruins needed their defensemen to step up after Brandon Carlo exited in the second period with an upper-body injury, and while the Avalanche walked away with the shootout win, Boston was happy with its defensive effort.
The Boston Bruins needed a kill. With the game tied 3-3 and 2:43 left in regulation, Hampus Lindholm interfered with Avalanche forward Ross Colton to set up a lethal Colorado power-play unit with a chance to win the game.
The Bruins were already playing short-handed on the back end after Brandon Carlo exited in the second period with an upper-body injury, and with Lindholm in the box, Boston had to fend off Nathan MacKinnon & Co. without their top two penalty-killing defensemen.
Carlo (121:46) and Lindholm (103:46) are first and second on the team, respectively, in time on ice in 4-on-5 penalty kill situations this season. For Boston, it was literally on the “next man up.”
Parker Wotherspoon, in his first season with the Bruins after eight years in the New York Islanders organization, was on the ice for 1:19 of the two-minute penalty and blocked a shot attempt from Cale Makar.
The Avalanche managed to put four shots on goal, but Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman kept the game level and eventually forced overtime.
“That’s the resiliency we have,” Swayman told reporters in Denver. “It’s ‘next man up’ mentality, and I couldn’t be more lucky to have a penalty kill like that in front of me every night. They take such good details, and [assistant coach] Joe Sacco does a great job giving us pre-scout, and that’s just communication on the ice, and it worked out well for us tonight.”
Swayman and the penalty kill had allowed a goal to Mikko Rantanen at 16:13 of the first period, in which MacKinnon and Makar drew out the defense to leave Rantanen open at the back door. Besides that, Swayman saved the other nine shots he faced short-handed.
With Carlo leaving early and Kevin Shattenkirk held to just 13:46 of ice time, the remaining defensemen had to step up in a big way. Wotherspoon (20:48) eclipsed 20 minutes of ice time in a single game for the first time in his career.
Even Charlie McAvoy, who always plays a lot of minutes, set a regular-season career high for time on ice in a single game at 30:50. The last time McAvoy eclipsed 30 minutes in a game was when he played 30:16 on March 16, 2021 in a 2-1 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Even with the heavier workload, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery was impressed by how his blue liners held up.
“I thought they played intelligently,” Montgomery told reporters. “We told them to stay inside the dots and have good gaps and not get outside the dots so that they could conserve energy, so to speak. And then we asked our forwards to track even more.”
The Bruins got their own man-advantage in overtime after a Logan O’Connor holding penalty at 3:02, but couldn’t convert. Valeri Nichushkin scored the only goal in the shootout to give Colorado the win.
“We need to be a little bit better there in those opportunities, closing out games,” Bruins captain Brad Marchand said. “But yeah, we did a good job getting the point. Could still improve on a few things, so we’ll look to do that tomorrow.”
Montgomery did not have an update on Carlo’s status, but the Bruins have a quick turnaround on Tuesday against the Arizona Coyotes at Mullet Arena. Mason Lohrei would be the one to jump back in the lineup if Carlo is unable to go.