By: Liz Rizzo | Follow me on Twitter @pastagrl88
It was a complete shutdown tonight at the Bridgestone Arena as the Boston Bruins ended their two-game road trip with a 5-0 win over the Nashville Predators. It was a solid effort all around with great goaltending from Jeremy Swayman who posted his 7th career shutout and goals from the top line.
The match-up tonight also marked the end of the sibling’s trip which, depending on who you ask, brought some much-needed luck to a Bruins team who have recently experienced a small slump in their schedule. Boston is now 41-8-5 while Nashville is 25-21-6.
GAME RECAP
A great start to the first period saw the Bruins take the lead early on as forward Brad Marchand wristed his 17th goal of the season past Nashville goaltender Juuse Saros. After bringing the puck up the ice Marchand quickly passed the puck to linemate Patrice Bergeron who then fed the pass back to Marchand.
Boston found themselves playing short-handed when Trent Frederic was called for holding against Tommy Novak while Taylor Hall skated off for holding the stick against Matt Duchane. A short-handed scoring attempt by the Bruins’ Jakub Lauko and Trent Frederic was thwarted by Saros.
The Bruins continued to control gameplay during the first period as time was spent mostly down in Nashville’s zone with multiple scoring chances- including one by former Preds’ player Craig Smith.
Boston finally found themselves on the power play when A.J. Greer was hi-sticked by Roman Josi. Despite a strong man advantage that saw the B’s hovering closely around Nashville’s net, there was no goal during the power play. The period ended with the Bruins on top 1-0 while outshooting the Preds 18-8.
The B’s extended their lead during a highly productive second period. Smith got things rolling when he backhanded a shot that looked to deflect off the stick of former Bruins’ player Jeremy Lauzon, making it 2-0. Captain Patrice Bergeron made it 3-0 during a power play and broke the team’s drought of scoring during the man advantage. Hampus Lindholm and Taylor Hall were credited with the assists. Bergeron is now tied with Cam Neely with 129 career power play goals.
Derek Forbort made it 4-0 after scoring a shot that once again looked to have deflected off Lauzon. Boston would end the period on the man advantage which carried over into the opening minute of the final period. The Bruins were outshot 10-7.
Nashville was able to kill off Boston’s power play to start the third period. Both teams continued to battle down in each other’s zone and with about nine minutes left in the period the Preds would have another power play chance when Lauko was called for a tripping penalty against Ryan McDonagh.
Frederic made it 5-0 after tipping in the puck from a spin and pass by Nick Foligno. Lindholm was also credited with an assist to the Frederic goal, making it his 200th NHL career assist.
The Boston Bruins win 5-0 with Patrice Bergeron, Hampus Lindholm, and Nick Foligno tallying up two points tonight. Swayman made 29 saves while Juuse Saros made 25 saves.
NEXT GAME: Saturday, February 18th against New York Islanders with puck drop at 5:00 PM
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