Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 40 shots to lead the Minnesota Wild to a comeback 4-3 overtime win against the Boston Bruins on Tuesday. David Pastrnak accounted for 11 of those shots, with two making it past Fleury. Afterwards, the two talked about each other’s game.
BOSTON – David Pastrnak had the Boston Bruins in position to win on Tuesday. His two first-period goals on his first two shots on goal, including one within the final second of the frame, gave Boston a 2-1 lead over the Minnesota Wild that carried into the third.
Even with the lead, Pastrnak was relentless in his attempt to score a third goal and put the game out of reach. He put nine more shots on net, but the man he was facing turned away all of them, totaling 40 saves to buy the Wild time before Kirill Kaprizov & Co. stole the game in overtime.
Marc-Andre Fleury, 39, is playing in his 20th and possibly final NHL season. The three-time Stanley Cup champion played in his 997th game on Tuesday, and put together a vintage performance after a shaky first period.
“Obviously he’s a hell of a goalie,” Pastrnak said. “He’s been proving it for two decades. So as long as I’m getting chances and looks, I’m not focusing on goalies that play in the best league in the world.”
After getting beaten twice, Fleury had his focus on Pastrnak to ensure it wouldn’t happen again, and the Wild goalie explained what makes Pastrnak so hard to stop.
“It feels like he always finds a way to get open,” Fleury said. “Doesn’t matter where the pass is at, he’s always able to get a good shot on.”
Tuesday’s loss marked the third time in the past four games that Boston led entering the third period only to lose in overtime. Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said he’s more concerned about the team’s execution on both ends than the lost leads, which he believes is happening all over the league, even saying he “watched it happen twice last night sitting on my couch.”
He referred to the Dallas-Seattle game on Monday, in which Seattle forced overtime before Thomas Harley won it for the Stars, and the Montreal-Winnipeg game, which saw the Jets tie it up before Montreal took back the lead to win in overtime.
In both games, the team who lost the lead ended up winning, whereas Boston has lost in each of those past three scenarios. It wasn’t for a lack of effort, at least in Tuesday’s game, but Montgomery acknowledged Fleury’s performance led to frustration on his bench.
“You did sense it,” Montgomery said. “We had great looks, and he was being his ‘Fleury’ self. He was reading it well, and he was really agile going left to right, but our goalie [Linus Ullmark] did the same.”
However, Pastrnak said he wasn’t frustrated, viewing the number of chances he had as a positive. But all that matters in the end is the outcome, and another game of leaving points on the board just means another missed opportunity.
“I could’ve ended the game a couple times, I didn’t,” Pastrnak said. “[Fleury] made a save, kept them in it. Credit to them, but that’s definitely a game we should’ve [won].”