Bruins vs. Canucks RECAP: Pasta has 4 point night in 5-1 WIN!

12/15/2024 07:00 AM

The Bruins came out swinging and never stopped until the game ended; with a big night for their star forward.

How's that for a reset?

1st Period

The Bruins played this period like they were shot out of a cannon; they were as engaged as they ever have been this season, and tore through the Canucks. Then Vancouver put the Bruisn on a power play, where they proceeded to look...really good, I mean like, really really good. In fact, Boston actually got a Power Play Goal out of it, as Brad Marchand was the end of a very strong passing play that the Canucks had no answer for!1-0 Bruins!

Then a mere three minutes later, Morgan Geekie got position out in front of Demko, and David Pastrnak put in some work behind the net, and fed him the prime opportunity to score.2-0 Bruins!

When the dust cleared, the Bruins ended up with a preposterous 16 shots on net to a measely 4 for Vancouver. Given how that's gone for Boston recently, that was a REALLY welcome change.

2nd Period

Scoring seems like a lot of fun at the NHL level. The big lights come on, your friends come and give you a big hug for putting you even further ahead, and you get to imagine the goal horn in your head when you're on the road. So why not have Pavel Zacha take an absolutely lights-out feed from David Pastrnak on the boards in the Neutral Zone, to send him ahead of everybody to slide the puck past Demko to put the B's up 3-0!

Then, wanting to join in on the goals party, the 4th line managed to get a turnover and send Marc McLaughlin the puck, and either Demko just kind of let it straight through his pads or it had a little help from a crashing Cole Koepke. Either way? 4-0 Bruins!

Also, there was a great big dust up after Quinn Hughes threw a puck past Brad Marchand's ear, and of course...that sort of set off a powderkeg that ended in a big ol' fight.

What made you think that was going to end well?

Either way, a 4-on-4 followed the B's and Canucks into the third period.

3rd Period

In the time it took you to read this sentence, David Pastrnak got a wraparound chance and buried it for his 4th point of the night. 5-0 Bruins!

Unfortunately, the Bruins did in fact somehow ruin Jeremy Swayman's bid for a shutout, and it came on the stick of a newbie; Max Sissons, who put the puck in off a passing play in which JT Miller grabbed a puck off of Elias Lindholm's stick.

Oh well. A .950 SV% is still pretty good.

The horn sounds, and the Boston Bruins took this one in a decisive 5-1 WIN!

Game Notes

• Your TOI leader for last night was Charlie McAvoy, who logged 23:56
• This was a possession bloodbath for the first 40 minutes of play, and a needed one on Boston's part. They made it clear on the broadcast and in post-game that the Winnipeg game pissed the Bruins off something fierce, and they put in the effort to absolutely trounce the Canucks at every level of the game. Granted, they did ease up a bit, and I don't personally agree with that, but for most of this game the Canucks got their lunch eaten in front of them, and if there's anything Boston can take from this, it's that they can in fact still do this when everyone pitches in.
• It also shouldn't surprise you then that part of the reason they were able to out-chance the Canucks is that they basically sat on Thatcher Demko's head and dared Vancouver's defense to clear the net, which they very much could not. It's been awhile since I've checked in with Vancouver, and so it's a little strange to me that they've collapsed system-wise as hard as they have.
• While the Power Play only finished 1-for-4, the fact that it felt so much more fresh, better executed, and dangerous feels like a major step in the right direction.
• Also hey! The PK wasn't a complete waste of time! Granted, they only had to kill a handful of penalties, but it's slowly creeping it's way upward from the trenches of hell that it previously was.
• Canucks captain Quinn Hughes really got pulled off his game tonight; whether it was because of the disastrous start his team put up or because Brad Marchand can just find that in people, he spent a lot of this game either up in Marchand's grill or trying to do something foolish, which he managed to actually accomplish thanks to a really dumb cross check on Oesterle. Funny what happens when Brad finds his dark powers once again, huh?
• There was a brief but terrifying minute or two where Charlie McAvoy had to leave the ice because he'd been cut with a skate blade, but thankfully he was sewn up quickly and got right back out there. Gotta imagine there's gonna be an interesting scar from this one with how much blood was on his sock.
• Did Marc McLaughlin actually score that goal? Or did Cole Koepke touch it? Vote now on your phones! My Opinion? It got the Bruins up 4-0, I'll congratulate whoever actually scored.
• David Pastrnak has gone 5 of his last 6 games getting at least a point, and made an emphatic statement with this game's 3 assist, 1 goal night; though fans might be a bit confused to see that his impressive 4 point night be skewed more towards playmaking than goalscoring as you might expect. Part of this I think is something that he himself has made a frustrating but necessary part of his game; creating goals, but not necessarily scoring them. Against a team as wide open and disorganized as the Canucks were tonight, he got nearly free reign to be the playmaker and it paid dividends. I think this is an important step forward for Pasta, as he'll need to do more of this in order to remain a relevant points-getter on a team increasingly struggling with finish without having a chance actively handed to them on a silver platter, but I absolutely understand fan frustration with the fact he's not scoring nearly as much as he would be in years' past. I also completely understand why this frustration mounts when he's asked to wear the hats of Mr. Goal Scorer and Mr. Playmaker and Mr. Space-maker all at once and it doesn't work. Tonight however? It worked beautifully, and the team is better for it. An absolutely fantastic performance from him tonight.
• Jeremy Swayman spent a good portion of the first period finding something for himself to do, but eventually was called upon to make better and better saves as the Canucks tried to claw their way back to something involving respectability. As such, he finished his night with a .950 SV% on 20 shots. A shame he couldn't get the shutout, but the win probably helps a lot more in the confidence department.
• It'll be missed in all of the fracas, Three Bruins had 2+ points tonight, and 8 had at least a point. That's a very welcome change from a lot of recent games where it felt like only two forwards a night were actually contributing to the score. They're gonna need that kind of effort going forward; as the Atlantic Division's middle is starting to look a little bloated, corpulent...and increasingly on their tail. Somehow. This division is so dumb, man.

The Bruins get a couple of nights off for travel as they make their way to Alberta, where first they take on the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night. That game drops the puck at 9pm EST.

We'll see you there!