GOLD STAR: David Pastrnak is the youngest player in the NHL, so naturally he should be the guy with the freshest legs in a back-to-back game. He was most definitely that on Sunday night as he set up Ryan Spooner for the first period goal, and then buried the overtime game-winner to ensure that the Bruins got two points where they absolutely didn’t deserve it against Carolina. Pastrnak finished with a pair of shots on net in 11:12 of ice time, and has just about as many goals (10) and three more points (25) than Tyler Seguin did in his rookie season with Boston. The fact he did in about half of the amount of games is pretty impressive.
BLACK EYE: Jeff Skinner only had one shot on net in his 17 plus minutes of ice time, and hit the post on a 2-on-1 chance when he couldn’t bury the opportunity in the third period that would have given the Hurricanes the victory. It was part of an amazing inability for Carolina to finish a number of chances in and around the net with plenty of holes defensively for the speedy Hurricanes to exploit. The Bruins looked tired and ripe to be picked off, but Carolina couldn’t do anything about it to take an extremely necessary two points from the Black and Gold.
TURNING POINT: The Bruins survived an extremely lackluster second and third period against Carolina while holding onto the tie game with a white-knuckled grip, and then managed to pull it out in overtime after at least securing the one needed point. It was all about weathering the storm, and that’s exactly what Tuukka Rask and the Bruins did while winning a game they had to have while avoiding the shootout that would have inevitably been their doom once again.
HONORABLE MENTION: He was aided by the Hurricanes hitting a number of posts, but Tuukka Rask was excellent for a Bruins group that was second to far too many pucks in 50/50 battles throughout the game. He needed to be on top of his game given the good chances that the Hurricanes were getting against a B’s defense that looked gassed, so perhaps the need for him to exit Saturday’s game at the start of the second period was a blessing in disguise. Rask had a couple of great stops on Chris Terry in the second period, and then stopped swallowed up chances from Nate Gerbe, Eric Staal and Victor Rask in the third period as they outshot the B’s 21-17 in the second and third periods.
BY THE NUMBERS: 3-12-5 – the B’s improved their record this season in games where they’ve allowed a goal in the final minute of the period, but that’s not a recommendation to keep the practice going.
QUOTE TO NOTE: “He’s unbelievable, man.” –Ryan Spooner talking about Tuukka Rask to the Boston Bruins official twitter account.