Brad Marchand scores twice as Bruins beat Coyotes, 5-2
GLENDALE, Ariz. — It had been a long road trip, one filled with disappointments and disaster for Boston, despite some not altogether bad play.
The Bruins had grown “desperate,’’ as coach Claude Julien put it on Saturday morning, staring at the potential of going 0-for-the-West-Coast with a matchup with the Blackhawks looming on their return home.
Asked if it had felt desperate going into their game Saturday night in Arizona, Reilly Smith answered, “Oh, absolutely.
“You need to get some points. It’s a waste of a trip if you don’t.’’
They had not been scoring and, when they finally did Thursday, they watched their defense go poof against the Sharks.
That was not the case against a bad Coyotes team in a half-empty Gila River Arena. No, the Bruins found their touch, pouring in five goals in a 5-2 win over Arizona that left the Coyotes with seven losses in their last seven home games.
“You could tell the guys were desperate,’’ said Brad Marchand, who called it one of the better games the Bruins have played in a while. “We played really good right from the get-go. Everyone was buying in and doing what we had to do to win. We’ve got to be happy with this, but hopefully we keep building on it.’’
The Bruins scored. They scored a lot. They scored on the power play. They did everything that they hadn’t been doing over the last three weeks.
“We didn’t want to go back home having not won a game here,’’ Julien said. “I thought we played well enough on this trip that somewhere along the way we should come out with a win, so this was our last crack at it, and we found a way to get that win that we desperately needed.’’
It was, as Julien said, a building block of a game. There were fewer turnovers, more wins in the battles, more puck possession in the offensive end, all things that the Bruins had needed to improve.
There was — unlike against San Jose — defense.
Just as they had against the Sharks, the Bruins went up quickly with a first-minute goal, again by the Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-Smith line. On Thursday, it was Smith getting the score; on Saturday, Marchand did the honors.
After Dougie Hamilton picked off the puck in the neutral zone, he skated up ice, dished the puck to Smith, who found Marchand for the short-side goal on Devan Dubnyk just 58 seconds into the game.
And, again, just as they had against the Sharks, the Bruins made it 2-0 not long after. Kevan Miller benefited from a mistake by Dubnyk for his first goal of the season. From behind the net, Dubnyk attempted to pass around the boards, but it was intercepted by Miller, who skated into the right circle and scored at 5:58.
The Coyotes cut the lead at 13:11, with Joe Vitale sniping a shot over Tuukka Rask’s shoulder from the right faceoff dot.
But what happened against the Sharks would not happen again.
“When they made it 2-1, the message on the bench was we’ve got to go get the next one here,’’ Julien said. “The next goal was going to be important, either letting them back in the game and starting from scratch or getting that two-goal lead again. Our guys responded well.’’
Said Marchand, “You could sense it in the room. We weren’t panicking. When we came out, we knew we had to play the same way we did in the first. We really focused on that in between the first and second [periods]. We came out and had another really good period.’’
And they built on the lead, finally getting a call around the net to go their way.
The Bruins got a little luck in the second period when the puck deflected off Simon Gagne’s boot and slipped between Dubnyk and the post. The goal, at 8:34 of the second, was waved off on the ice, but the decision was reversed on review, providing the eventual game-winner.
“We haven’t had that many breaks lately, so it was nice to get one,’’ Julien said.
For Gagne, it was his second goal of the road trip, and the third goal for the fourth line in four games.
And instead of letting up, as they had done in San Jose, the Bruins continued to turn it on. They got their fourth goal at 14:47, with Marchand scoring his second of the night off a slick Smith pass between the legs of defenseman Michael Stone. That goal chased Dubnyk.
The Bruins added their fifth and final goal on the power play with 30 seconds to go in the second, with breakthroughs from both the man advantage and Loui Eriksson.
It was a good win, a needed win, a win that reversed some troubling trends for the Bruins, and it will send them off on a more pleasant plane ride back to Boston Sunday morning.
“Sometimes you come in and you say all these things. You want to put it on the ice, and sometimes it just doesn’t work,’’ Marchand said. “It was great that the guys took it upon themselves to go out and play the way we had to. You could see it in the game. We played a really good game, a full 60 minutes.
“You’ve got to give the guys credit. They stepped up and answered the bell.’’
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