The Bruins dressed almost their entire NHL lineup in their final home preseason game and, if it was a forecast for the regular season, three things are evident about this team.
The first is that the B’s will be able to dominate possession for long periods of time. The second is that goals won’t come easily. And the third is that they are indeed better equipped to grind out tight wins.
The B’s outshot the Flyers, 34-14, and came away with a 4-1 victory at the Garden on Tuesday.
Tyler Johnson, in camp on a tryout and still waiting on a contract offer, gave the B’s their second lead of the game at 7:50 of the third period, beating Samuel Ersson off a pretty backdoor pass from Pavel Zacha.
Brandon Bussi came up with a big save on Sean Couturier with less than four minutes to preserve the lead before Charlie Coyle and Mark Kastelic ended it with a pair of empty net goals.
With excellent pace, the Bruins owned the first period, outshooting the Flyers, 17-4, and taking a 1-0 lead.
The B’s took the lead on a nice play by Nikita Zadorov, who took the puck down low on the right side before feeding Justin Brazeau at the top of the crease. Brazeau redirected the puck through goalie Sam Ersson’s pads and just over the goal line, which video review confirmed.
Zadorov had struggled in this first perseason game while playing on the top pair, but coach Jim Montgomery had changed up all his defense pairs, putting Zadorov with Andrew Peeke, Charlie McAvoy with Hampus Lindholm and Mason Lohrei with Brandon Carlo. And it seemed to work well, as the back end controlled the pace of the game in the first.
The pace slowed down in the second. Brad Marchand, who was making his preseason debut after rehabbing from three offseason surgeries, did not come out for the second period due to illness, according to the club.
And midway through the period, the Flyers tied it up. Bussi has had trouble with his rebound control and it was off another rebound that the Flyers evened the game. Philly’s excellent rookie Matvei Michkov came out of a pack up along the right wall and got off a shot hat Bussi couldn’t hang on to. The rebound went right to Travis Konecny for the put-back.
The Flyers, who also had many of their regulars in the lineup, got a little chippy later in the second, especially short-time Bruin Garnet Hathaway. He delivered a blow from behind on McAvoy that the Bruin defenseman did not like and he wound up taking a retaliatory cross checking penalty.
The B’s killed that one and, as McAvoy came out of the box, Cole Koepke fed Coyle for a clean look that Ersson was able to get a glove on. McAvoy appeared to knock the loose puck home, but the play was whistled dead.
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