BOSTON — If there were any lingering questions why the Bruins added depth before Monday’s trading deadline, they were answered early in a 2-1 overtime victory over Montreal on Saturday night at the Garden.
Just 37 seconds into the game, rookie defenseman Charlie McAvoy was lost for the night with a lower body injury. Initial replays appeared to show Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher slashing the top of McAvoy’s right skate, but other angles revealed that [...]
BOSTON — If there were any lingering questions why the Bruins added depth before Monday’s trading deadline, they were answered early in a 2-1 overtime victory over Montreal on Saturday night at the Garden.
Just 37 seconds into the game, rookie defenseman Charlie McAvoy was lost for the night with a lower body injury. Initial replays appeared to show Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher slashing the top of McAvoy’s right skate, but other angles revealed that Gallagher’s chop missed McAvoy’s skate, but he did trip him up. McAvoy fell and then left the ice in pain. He had to be helped to the Bruins locker room.
Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said he wasn’t sure what happened, but planned to watch video of it.
“It won’t be too hard to find out,” he said, “because he was out there for 37 seconds.”
The Bruins are off Sunday so Cassidy said the team would have a better idea of the severity of McAvoy’s injury when the team practices on Monday.
“Hopefully, it’s not serious,” Cassidy said. “It didn’t look serious at the time, but I don’t really know.”
On Tuesday, the Bruins announced that Hart Memorial Trophy candidate Patrice Bergeron will be sidelined with a fractured foot and will be reevaluated in two weeks. He and McAvoy are two of the team’s best players.
McAvoy, 20, averages 22:29 of ice time, tops among rookies, and forms Boston’s No. 1 defensive pairing with captain Zdeno Chara, who is twice his age.
To add depth to their defensive corps, the Bruins acquired veteran Nick Holden from the Rangers on Feb. 20. Holden skated in his second Bruins game on Saturday in place of banged-up rookie Matt Grzelcyk. The Bruins also recently added forwards Rick Nash, Tommy Wingels and Brian Gionta.
“It’s turning out to be a great thing,” Torey Krug said.
Without McAvoy, the Bruins played with only five defensemen and managed to limit Montreal to one goal. The Bruins outshot the Canadiens, 50-28.
“You never want to lose a guy,” Krug said, “but you lose him the first shift of the game, especially a guy that logs a lot of minutes for us, plays big-time matchups. It’s tough to see a guy go down and then we’ve got to play with five D the rest of the night and hopefully the forwards can help us out by chipping pucks in deep and letting us get our changes when we can. It’s definitely tough for sure.”
“Clearly, we had some issues moving the puck out of our zone,” Cassidy said. “Charlie’s a transporter, he’s a mover, passer and all of the above. Offensive zone he can create some space and get some shots through, make some plays. And then it wears on you from the opening shift defending. That’s 23 minutes a night that you’ve got to now parse out over for the full 59 minutes through five guys. So I think some of our pinches were a little bit late because maybe we were fatigued. Allowed a few more odd-man rushes than we would like, but I think for the most part it’s that puck moving, first pass that we missed.”
Krug thought skating only five defensemen made the game more difficult, but simpler.
“It’s nice because you don’t think and you just play,” he said. “Matchups aren’t as crucial. Obviously, we’re still trying to get certain things done on the ice, but there’s no time to mess around. You get out there, you play hard, move the puck quick.”
McAvoy has seven goals and 25 assists for 32 points. He had played in 14 games since missing four after undergoing a heart procedure on Jan. 22.
The Bruins missed McAvoy on the power play. They were 0-for-5 with a man advantage before Jake DeBrusk tied the score on a power play by redirecting Holden’s slap shot with 2:45 left in regulation after Montreal defenseman Jonathan Drouin flipped the puck into the stands and was called for delay of game. Brad Marchand scored 2:06 into overtime to enable the Bruins to sweep the season series from Montreal for the first time since another 4-0 sweep in 1994-95.
The Bruins managed to win after regulation even though McAvoy plays his best then. On Tuesday, he became the youngest Bruins defenseman to score in OT in a 4-3 win over Carolina. Earlier this season, he scored the deciding shootout goals at New Jersey and against Winnipeg.