Bruins lose Brandon Carlo, Jeremy Swayman makes 33 saves in shootout loss at Ball Arena.
Brad Marchand scored two goals to tie, then pass, Rick Middleton for fifth on the Boston Bruins all-time scoring list by reaching 899 points, but the Bruins fell 4-3 in a shootout to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday.
“‘Marchy’ was terrific tonight,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery told reporters in Denver after the game. “I thought he led really well. He was very vocal on the bench about how we needed to get to our game and explaining to his teammates what we had to do.”
Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin scored the lone goal in the shootout, and Alexandar Georgiev made 24 saves to give Colorado the win.
Jeremy Swayman made 33 saves in another standout effort for Boston, which dropped to 24-8-7. Johnny Beecher scored the other goal. Brandon Carlo exited during the second period and was ruled out with an upper-body injury.
“It just shows our leadership, ‘Marchy’ putting us on his back and not taking ‘no’ for an answer, so that was a huge push for our team,” Swayman told reporters. “I’m really happy with the guys’ effort tonight, and I know that we wanted to start this road trip off right, and that’s one way to do it.”
Colorado was outshooting Boston 8-2 when they got their first power-play chance of the game, but the Bruins generated the two best chances despite being short-handed.
Charlie Coyle picked up a loose puck right in the slot following a misplay between Mikko Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon at 8:00, but was stoned by Georgiev. He regained possession on a backcheck, and found Jake DeBrusk up ice for a breakaway at 8:19, but once again Georgiev was up to the task.
Boston got their first power-play opportunity after Andrew Cogliano tripped Parker Wotherspoon at 10:22, and they took advantage. Marchand gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 11:21, looping back around the left side of the zone before picking his spot from behind the face-off circle.
The Avalanche answered on their next power play when Rantanen tied it 1-1 for Colorado, finishing off a quick passing sequence between Cale Makar and MacKinnon down to Rantanen at the net front at 16:63.
Logan O’Connor put the Avalanche ahead 2-1 at 2:23 of the second, picking the puck off and skating in after a defensive zone miscue between Kevin Shattenkirk and Pavel Zacha.
Johnny Beecher tied it 2-2 at 10:05, punching in Danton Heinen’s wraparound attempt, but Sam Malinski put the Avalanche back ahead 3-2 at 17:56 with a wrister from the point.
Marchand tied it 3-3 at 5:46 of the third, knifing his way into the offensive zone all by himself before cycling around with Coyle and tapping it in at the net front.
Rantanen hit the crossbar at 7:16, and the two sides traded shots down the stretch. They also exchanged power-play opportunities in the final minutes of regulation and overtime.
Hampus Lindholm’s interference penalty against Ross Colton at 17:17 set Colorado up with a power play in the final minutes, but the Bruins penalty kill held on to eventually force overtime.
“I liked the desperation we had,” Montgomery said. “We did make a couple of mistakes, and thank God they didn’t capitalize on them, and our goaltender made some fantastic saves.”
Zacha drew a penalty with 1:58 left in overtime, during which the Bruins generated four shots on goal, but Colorado held on to force the shootout.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t get that second point,” Marchand told reporters. “Had a couple opportunities, we kind of squandered the power play in overtime, so we need to be a little bit better there in those opportunities closing out games, but yeah, we did a good job getting the point.”