Bruins get back to the grind against Red Wings (Feb 05, 2018)
DETROIT -- The Boston Bruins travel to Detroit on Tuesday to play the Detroit Red Wings in the first of back-to-back road games.
Boston (31-11-8) will then play the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.
And while stars like center Patrice Bergeron, left winger Brad Marchand, goalie Tuukka Rask and defenseman Zdeno Chara have certainly done their part, the Bruins have also gotten outstanding play from other sources. That includes grinders like forward Tim Schaller and defenseman Adam McQuaid and rookies defenseman Charlie McAvoy, center Danton Heinen and left winger Jake DeBrusk.
Schaller scored in Saturday night's 4-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs and Heinen had two assists. The other three did not get on the scoreboards but did the things necessary to help the Bruins get the win, particularly McQuaid, who has only played 14 games this season due to injury.
"That's Adam. He's a soldier for us. He hasn't played a lot of hockey this year, so he's still shaking off some rust with the puck making plays," Boston coach Bruce Cassidy told the Boston Herald. "But he did a heck of a job for us in those areas of the game that we expect from him."
Cassidy also talked about the play of the team's first-year players.
"This week, (the rookies) have gotten a taste of it. Life on the walls, life at winning pucks, zone to zone at times, low-scoring games," Cassidy said. "Mistakes get magnified in those games if you're not careful, so it's good for them to learn against these types of teams that we expect to see down the road."
Rask is 18-0-2 in his last 20 games and Marchand will return from his five-game suspension on Wednesday in New York.
Detroit (21-22-8) is 1 of 11 on the power play in its last five games.
"It's not good enough, it has to be better," Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill told the Detroit News. "I still think for us to be a playoff team the rest of the year, they have to be in the top 10. Our PK has been better the last little bit, but our power play hasn't been good enough."
Detroit is generating chances with the man advantage, but that's it.
"We're not getting what we want to get from our power play. You want to get goals," Red Wings center and captain Henrik Zetterberg said. "Obviously. We've got some momentum lately. It's been a little better than it was a while ago, but we need some goals."
To make things worse, a few Red Wings forwards are in goal-scoring slumps.
Zetterberg hasn't scored in 14 games. Rookie right winger Martin Frk has gone 17 games without a goal. Forward Andreas Athanasiou has gone seven games without scoring.
Center Dylan Larkin and rookie right winger Anthony Mantha have one goal in each of their last eight games. Left winger Tomas Tatar hasn't scored in six games and has one goal in 11 games. Right winger Gustav Nyquist has one goal in his last 10 and center Frans Nielsen has one goal in 13 games.
