Red Wings edge Bruins, 2-1

In Boston on Tuesday night, the Bruins played without Brad Marchand, who is on suspension, and head coach Bruce Cassidy, who went into the NHL’s COVID19 protocol.

The Detroit Red Wings added misery to the Bruins plight with a 2-1 win.

Alex Nedeljkovic made 41 saves for Detroit in the victory.

“[Nedeljkovic] played well. I will say we played very well defensively,” Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill said. “We gave up shots, but we didn’t give up a whole bunch of chances. When we did, he did a good job. … I thought we took away the real Grade A chances. I think for me, this would be more of a team defense success than just one player.”

David Pastrnak hit for the only Boston goal, in the second period to tie the game, 1-1.

“It’s a night where you want to come away with a win,” Boston’s  Taylor Hall said. “Those are games in the schedule that when you play like that, you want to come away with points, and obviously that’s something we’ve got to do better at. I feel like on the majority of nights during the season, we control play and haven’t had the record that we want.”

The Bruins dropped to 11-8-0.

“I thought it was a good effort by our guys in the offensive zone tonight,” Bruins assistant coach Joe Sacco said. “We didn’t pass up a lot of shots. I think we made it a little bit easy on [Nedeljkovic] at times by not getting in front of him enough. … I thought we had some good quality chances. … Unfortunately we weren’t able to finish off some of those chances.”

Detroit’s Marc Staal  scored in the third period for the game-winner.

“[Staal] is a rock. He’s a guy we lean on for consistency,” the Red Wings’  Dylan Larkin said. “He’s a great locker-room guy. I know the guys have a ton of respect for him and the way he plays the game. It’s great to see him get one. [It was] a huge goal for our hockey team.”

Detroit improved to 11-9-3.

It was Staal’s first goal of the season.

Linus Ullmark made 14 saves in the Boston loss.