Bruins vs. Avalanche RECAP: Boston takes care of business in 5-3 WIN!

Yesterday at 10:13

The 4th line was once again a major force as 5 different players scored in another strong W for the Black and Gold!

First Period

The period was pretty tight to begin with, with Boston slowly overtaking the Avs as it was clear that Colorado really didn't have too much of an attack away from their stars. Finally the dam broke as Cole Koepke tipped home an Andrew Peeke shot to get the Bruins up 1-0!

Great work by everyone on the walls on that shift; The Avs were scrambling.

Then, Riley Tufte got dinged for holding on Josh Manson, and the Bruins learned up close and personal why putting the Avalanche on the power play is a very bad idea as they only needed about 21 seconds to put Ross Colton on the board and tie the game. 1-1.

This is going to become a motif. Get ready for that.

Thankfully, Boston showed a little power play acumen of their own, as they were able to respond with Mason Lohrei picking up a fortunate bounce off of Josh Manson and slinging it to Charlie Coyle, who put it home on a yawning cage! 2-1 Bruins!

Excellent play recognition from Lohrei and Coyle there. Exceptional stuff.

No further scoring, so we move onto period 2!

Second Period

The scoring was opened by another power play tally, as David Pastrnak got a pass off while being brought to the ice to keep the play alive, and was rewarded for his efforts by Hampus Lindholm who threw a sharp centering feed back to him, and he slammed it home at the net-front. 3-1 Bruins!

And y'know what? That looked fun. Hampus got Pasta that goal, so why not go get his own? Let's see how he ends up getting a shot through.

Well hell, I guess any old shot will do! 4-1 Bruins!

Unfortunately, the Bruins kept putting the Colorado Avalanche on the power play, and they apparently didn't retain the lesson last time, so Cale Makar, who is very good and one of Colorado's premiere players, made them pay for it with another power play tally. 4-2 Bruins.

Probably want that one back.

Either way, B's and Avs go to the dressing room, and one final period awaits.

Third Period

ANOTHER O-ZONE PENALTY!?

Okay fine, the Bruins apparently did not get the memo on the Avs and Power Play, so this time Mikko Rantanen put a bullet past Korpisalo to trim the lead to 4-3 Bruins.

Mercifully, the Bruins managed to weather the Avs waking up and attacking hard to try and climb back into the game...and Johnny Beecher ended up finishing the game by making the Avs pay with an empty netter.

5-3, Bruins Win!

Game Notes

• Your TOI leader was Charlie McAvoy who logged 22:58 tonight.
• Boston dropped 21 shots across 40 minutes on the Avs, and they could only muster about 11 in response across the same amount of time. Not to put too blunt a point on it, but the Avs at evens were kind of bad and the B's took ample advantage of it. The Avs did turn it back on in the third thanks to some help from the referees and Riley Tufte, but otherwise the Bruins took a team that was struggling under the weight of some positional problems, and made them pay for that thrice over.
• The B's had 5 different scorers tonight, and of course another strong night for the 4th line; Kastelic, Beecher, and Koepke were somewhere in the top six of the advanced metrics between all of the three important ones, and they got rewarded with two goals from Beecher and Koepke. It's always nice to see depth guys working their ass off, be a net-positive as a result of that work, and then get rewarded for it.
• Decent night for Hampus Lindholm! He logged 22 minutes, got an assist on Pasta's goal, and probably got one of the easiest goals he's ever had in the NHL that wasn't in warmups with an empty net. Good on him!
• When Mason Lohrei is on his horse, he can be an active joy to watch, as his pass that set up Charlie Coyle for his first of the year. This is the effort we need to see consistently, and if they can get it from him? Now we're cookin'.
• Matthew Poitras' game is gonna be a topic of discussion after he was benched or kept off the ice for pretty much the entire third period. Frankly, I think it's okay to remind a promising player that he's currently not playing up to his own standards. Where I think that will get bogged down is that Riley Tufte spent the entire game largely trying to give the game away to the Avalanche, and Max Jones only allegedly took the ice.
• Joonas Korpisalo played against a 2024-25 Colorado Avalanche goaltender so he is automatically disqualified from any criticism I could make about his performance because he was outdone in suckitude by Alex Georgiev. He probably wants Makar's goal back, but frankly if every goal he let up tonight was because Boston only had 4 skaters out there against the Colorado Avalanche, I think he's earned himself a reprieve.
• That said I really don't want the B's to face another team and walk away with the other team going 3-for-3. Especially if Riley Tufte is going to be directly responsible for two of them in the offensive zone. Sound good? Great. Go eat some popcorn and model the new 3rd jersey for a bit.
• Another injury scare with Brad Marchand. I'm gonna be real, until he starts to heal up from all those surgeries...I'm fine with him continuing to drop into the lineup so that they can shelter him a bit. He's too important to the long-term health of the team.
• Nikita Zadorov should send the refs an "I'm sorry" note or something because this dude has just been lasered in on for the past few games by the officiating.
• Wow crazy that David Pastrnak has 5 points in 5 games he's really gotta pick up the pace, huh
• Is it weird to think the next game is gonna be an early season test? Was anyone thinking that might be the case when the season started? Because it's starting to feel like one now.

The Bruins continue their little western road trip by making their first ever appearance at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City Utah, to face Utah HC on Saturday night at 9:30pm EST.

We'll see you there!