WASHINGTON — If the Bruins’ season opener on Wednesday was any indication, they will play an entertaining brand of hockey in the 2022-23 season.
For better and worse.
The B’s showed some sparkling offensive creativity and aggressiveness which backfired on them a couple of times. But after nearly losing a 3-0 lead by allowing two odd-man rush goals in the second period, the B’s regained their footing in the third.
David Krejci sealed it with a late goal. Hampus Lindholm snuffed out any Washington hope with an empty-netter, delivering the 5-2 win at Capital One Arena.
David Pastrnak had a four-point night (1-3-4) and Linus Ullmark made 33 saves for the victory.
The Bruins took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Patrice Bergeron and Pastrnak, but first they needed Ullmark to come up with a few big stops while the skaters looked like they were intent on re-enacting their last defense-optional preseason game.
But the B’s snapped out of pretty quickly and, after Mike Reilly took an Evgeny Kuznetsov stick to the mouth, they got on the board.
On the man advantage, Darcy Kuemper put a fat rebound of a Krejci shot into the slot. Bergeron calmly kicked the puck onto his stick blade and snapped his 401st career goal past the netminder at 7:58.
Meanwhile, the Czech line was starting to find its groove. First, Pastrnak made a pretty backhand pass to Krejci as he was going away from the net, putting Krejci all alone in front of Kuemper. But Krejci didn’t have a shot and Pavel Zacha’s redirect of his centerman’s pass was gobbled up by the goalie.
But Kuemper did not have an answer for Pastrnak at 15:03, when the sharpshooter skated into the high slot from his right wing, took a surprising turnaround shot and scored his first of what should be many this year.
The first period was a little looser defensively than what we’re used seeing from the B’s. Some of it may be due to the loss of Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk, some of it could be chalked up to the players acclimating to the new system. But they needed to tighten up in their puck management in their own zone. They held a 15-12 shot advantage in the first, though the Caps held a 26-20 total shots edge.
The first few minutes of the second looked a lot like the first, and this time the crossbar kept the Caps off the board.
And then the B’s stretched the lead to 3-0 at 6:14 off a beautiful play that was started and finished by Hall. He broke the puck out of his own zone, avoided what could have been a brutal hit from Conor Sheary and got the puck up to Reilly. Reilly hit Pastrnak, who was changing on to the ice, and he in turn dished to Hall on the left wing for the tally.
But the B’s started to get cute in the offensive zone and they paid for it. The Czech line was wheeling and dealing for a shift until Krejci lost the puck out high and, with Reilly already in go-go mode, the Caps broke out on a 2-on-1, with Dylan Strome feeding Anthony Mantha for the goal at 7:34.
The Czech line coughed up another one five minutes later. On a promising looking play, Pastrnak took some open ice in the high slot, but his wrist shot was blocked by Sheary and the Caps took off on another odd-man rush. After getting up from the block, Shear was there to take Nic Dowd’s pass and beat Ullmark cleanly from the left wing at 12:43.
On both goals against, Reilly – whose aggressiveness helped on the B’s second and third goals – was caught deep in the O-zone, a wrinkle of Jim Montgomery’s new system that needs to be ironed out.
The B’s also lost Jake DeBrusk when he appeared to hurt his right hand after hitting the deck on what looked like an uncalled crosscheck from Erik Gustafsson.
In the third period, the B’s did not give up as many chances – thanks in part to two drawn penalties by Jakub Lauko – and with 3:43, Krejci notched an insurance goal when he followed up a Pastrnak break in.
