After opening the 2022-23 regular season on the road on Oct. 12 with a 5-2 victory over the Washington Capitals, the Boston Bruins opened up their home portion of their schedule Saturday night against the Arizona Coyotes at TD Garden. It wasn’t always pretty, but in the end, the Bruins were able to do enough for a 6-3 win.
The Bruins held leads of 2-0 after the first period and 3-1 entering the third period, but two early Coyotes’ goals in the final period tied the game, but Boston responded in an early-season gut-check by scoring three goals in the final 11 minutes for their 19th consecutive win over Arizona. Here are three Bruins’ takeaways from a win that was a lot closer than the final score indicates.
Bruins Dominate First Period Again
Boston set the tone against the Capitals with two first-period goals and they followed that same script against the Coyotes. Pavel Zacha got the Black and Gold on the board with a power play goal when drilled the rebound of a Nick Foligno shot off the post into an open net. At the end of the period, Charlie Coyle doubled the lead with a nice break down the right side and beat Arizona goalie Karel Vejmelka under the crossbar.
The Bruins put on an offensive clinic in the opening 20 minutes and outshot the Coyotes 12-4 with all four lines having a hand in the offensive chances. Boston had good zone entries, including Zacha using his speed with the Black and Gold on their first power play, which led to a hooking penalty, which Zacha scored on. Strong first periods are going to go a long way toward the Bruins having a lot of success this season.
Bruins Bottom-Six Supplies Deciding Offense
In the win over Washington, it was the Bruins’ top six that supplied the offense and against Arizona, it was the bottom six that backboned the offensive production. It was also production from some welcomed players and players that are going to need to help support the top six on different nights.
Aside from Coyle’s goal in the first period, Foligno scored his first goal of the season in the second period when he redirected a Connor Clifton shot, before A.J. Greer, who had a very strong training camp and preseason, put the game away with two third period goals, including one into an empty net. Tomas Nosek was strong at the faceoff dot, winning eight of his 11 draws, while Trent Frederic was a physical presence in his first game of the season and assisted on Coyle’s first-period goal after he delivered a hit in front of the Coyotes bench, which forced a turnover and led to the goal.
There is no doubt that the bottom six was the difference in the game and they have the current team leader in goals with two in Greer through the first two games. They were physical, they created turnovers that led to goal-scoring opportunities, and were relentless on the forecheck. The top six was the story of the win over Washington, the bottom six was the story of the win over Arizona. The Bruins have 11 goals in their first two games from 10 different players.
Forbort Continues Strong Start to Season
Derek Forbort was arguably the best defenseman against the Capitals playing a team-high 23:36, which included 4:35 of time shorthanded with five blocked shots. That effort was not missed by his first-year coach, Jim Montgomery.
“He ate pucks,” said the coach. “Did a lot of effort things … it was evident … that’s why [D coach] Jon Gruden used him so much because he was killing plays, he was ending plays, and we weren’t spending much time in our own end when he was out there.” (from ‘Trent Frederic swaps in for injured Jake DeBrusk for Bruins,‘ Boston Globe, Oct. 14, 2022).
Saturday against Arizona, Forbort, who struggled with consistency last season, was once again strong on the defensive zone breakouts, very good in the defensive end, and broke a 3-3 third-period tie with his first goal of 2022-23. It turned out to be the game-winning goal and his first goal since November of 2021, a span of 64 consecutive regular-season games.
Forbort also played a key role in the penalty kill in the second period. The Bruins were called for three consecutive penalties and Forbort logged 3:04 of time on the ice, helping to kill two of the three penalties. Forbort’s efforts will be needed going forward as Brandon Carlo did not return to the game after taking a hit from the Coyotes’ Liam O’Brien and suffered an upper-body injury late in the first period.
Related: Bruins Need Better Situational Decisions in Montgomery’s System
A win is a win and the Bruins will take it as they deal with another injury to a key player in Carlo, who joins DeBrusk on the sideline. Boston begins a busy week with four games in six days beginning Monday night against the new-look Florida Panthers, which makes the three-goal third period even more important to collect two points in the standings against a team that is in the middle stages of a massive rebuild.