In Boston, the Bruins’ Taylor Hall scored in the second period to give Boston a 1-0 lead over the visiting Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night.
Linus Ullmark made 30 saves and the Bruins downed the Ducks, 2-1, after the skills portion of the evening;s affair.
“I’d rather we just win in, you know, after 60 [minutes]. That’s how I see it,” Ullmark said. “If it goes all the way to 65 and then shootout, it’s been working so far. Hopefully we can keep doing that. I don’t plan on letting in goals just because it’s a shootout, so it was fun tonight.”
Frank Vatrano scored for the Ducks in the second period to tie the game, 1-1.
“[Boston’s] got great back pressure,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said. “We need to play behind them, and we had a couple of our lines who refused to do it. The pucks were turning around, coming back our way, but then as we got on and further in the game, we started to employ our game plan better, and then suddenly you start getting rewarded.”
Hall scored the only goal in the skills competition.
“We just didn’t make clean plays tonight,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “I thought puck movement was slow at 5-on-5 and especially on the power play tonight. We found a way to get two points. It’s a hard league to win in, and we’re going to enjoy the two points, but we’re not going to be happy with the team play.”
For the Ducks it was big improvement over recent games.
“I think it’s a huge step for us,” Vatrano said. “I think that’s the most complete game we played. We looked at some things this morning to fix the problems. Obviously, it’d be nice for two points, but it’s good to get one, and we have to build off that.”
John Gibson made 35 saves in the Anaheim loss.
“It was a good game, probably the best game we’ve played so far this year,” Gibson said. “We have to find a way to score on the power play (0-for-4). I mean, we had some big opportunities there, and make-or-break games, but we just got to keep taking steps forward.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.