BOSTON – The TD Garden will always bring special memories to the Blues as the place where they won Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final, but in here and now, it’s just another place where they won a game.
Which is totally fine with them. The Blues shrugged off some second-period doldrums thanks to a hit by St. Louisan Trent Frederic on Vladimir Tarasenko that led to a power-play goal that tied the game and the Blues took it from there, improving to 8-0-1 in their past nine games with a 4-2 win over the Bruins on Tuesday night.
Tarasenko scored twice and Torey Krug celebrated his birthday and his return to the lineup after missing 10 games with a hand injury with a goal and an assist. Ville Husso once again got the job done in goal, stopping 39 shots.
The Blues are 5-1-1 in their past seven road games and have another one in Buffalo on Thursday.
Tarasenko’s second goal of the evening, and 28th of the season, gave the Blues their needed insurance, as he finished off a 3-on-1 with 10:37 to go in the third. Tarasenko passed to Pavel Buchnevich, who passed back to Tarasenko, while Robert Thomas was driving to the net down the middle and giving goalie Jeremy Swayman more than he could deal with. It was Tarasenko’s third multi-goal game in his past nine and the 37th in his career.
For the sixth straight game, the Blues scored first, this time with David Perron backhanding a shot past Swayman to finish a two-on-one break along with Ryan O’Reilly. After a run where he scored 11 goals in 10 games, Perron had gone seven games without one. It was the 24th of the season for Perron.
The Blues had won their five previous games where they scored first, but they had almost no time to work with this lead. Brad Marchand took the puck behind the net, found Patrice Bergeron alone in the shot and 15 seconds later, it was even.
After two power plays for the Blues where they couldn’t score and one for the Bruins, it looked like the Blues had regained the leadon a blast by Krug that caught Pavel Buchnevich in the leg and deflected into the net. Buchnevich, clearly in pain, accepted congratulations for the goal, but it turned out he got nothing for his pain. Boston challenged the goal and Thomas was offside entering the zone and the goal was wiped out.
With 3:01 to go in the first, it was Boston that took the lead, with Marc McLaughlin alone in the slot this time to put in a pass from Erik Haula.
The Blues spend much of the first half of the second period in their own end, unable to get the puck out and generate any kind of offense. But somehow, they kept the Bruins off the board.
The game shifted with 5:43 to go in the period, when Tarasenko and Frederic, who had been exchanging swipes with Tarasenko on a preceding faceoff, skated over and hit Tarasenko after a whistle, though Tarasenko returned the favor and came out ahead. Frederic, whose family’s roofing company advertises on Blues games, got two minutes for roughing, and less than a minute in, Krug skated on a loose puck, maneuvered around two Bruins and scored, his first goal in exactly a month to tie the game. The crowd that had given Krug a standing ovation during a first period time out booed.
Frederic’s hit, and extension the tying goal, seemed to lift the Blues, who suddenly were creating chances on every shift. Tarasenko couldn’t finish a chance for a tip in at the far post. On his next shift, he hit the post. And finally, with 1:48 to go in the period, he put it in. Buchnevich played a puck across the slot that Thomas tapped between his legs to Tarasenko behind him, and he then spun and shot and scored. For Thomas, it extended his career-best point streak to 10 games.
