The Boston Bruins needed a win and they got one Tuesday night, 3-0, over the Sabres in Buffalo.
Anton Khudobin made 36 saves to star in the win.
“Tonight, I thought he seemed square, in control, not a lot bothering him, not a lot going on around him in terms of him not overplaying situations,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “You know he’s in a good place when that happens and he deserved it, he was full value for us.”
The offense came off the sticks of Jake DeBrusk, Tim Schaller and David Backes
The Bruins improved to 17-10-5 and their defense has been stellar over the last two games including a 7-2 thrashing of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“In the third, on the road, in a back-to-back, usually a team’s going to have a push — and I don’t want to be disrespectful — but I don’t know if they had a true sustained push,” Cassidy said. “I mean, they had some shifts in our end, but I thought we managed the game very well in the third.
“… The rest of our game, I thought, is really coming along from the start of the year. That’s one of the biggest differences: We’re recognizing how to play in those situations and to settle down and play the right way.”
[WATCH: All Bruins vs. Sabres highlights]
Robin Lehner took the loss on 30 saves and continues to struggle without a supporting offense in front of him.
“You’ve got to stick to the game plan and eventually you’ll break through, but it just seems that sometimes we’re taking things into our own hands and it just keeps coming back at us,” Sabres head coach Phil Housley said. ” We’ve got to realize if we just stay with the course of our game plan, eventually it’ll break. You’ll get a good bounce, you’ll get a shot off the shin pad, but we tend to do that and especially when we trend in a good direction, we get away from that. We’re cracking.”
Or a supportive defense for that matter.
“It’s unfortunate because [Lehner] played an excellent game, kept us in the game the whole time,” the Sabres’ Benoit Pouliot said. “For us to pay him back we’ve got to put some pucks in the net. We got our chances, it’s just a matter of finishing and we kind of let go in the second too, which kind of hurt us for the rest of the game.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.