The Colorado Avalanche made a rare trip out to Boston’s TD Garden yesterday, the only regular season meeting between the two clubs on the calendar, in an extremely close contest between the East/West teams. The game was decided by one goal, or two goalies, rather.
The ice was full of goal scorers on either side, but the battle was in between the pipes. Semyon Varlamov and Tukka Rask played at their best in the contest, a battle of two first round draft selections. The Colorado Avalanche gave up a great deal of their future options to acquire the Russian goaltender from the Washington Capitals during the off-season as they let go of a 2012 first and second round draft pick for the 23 year-old.
Varlamov recorded his fifth career shutout as he stopped all 30 shots the Bruins put on goal. Having played in the Eastern Conference for all three years of his NHL career with the Capitals, Varlamov said he felt fairly comfortable at TD Garden Center, and was able to use that to his advantage.
"Especially with the boards," said Varlamov. "They are more bouncy and I know how they react and whenever they shoot the puck, it just comes back out in front of the goal, so I knew how to deal with that."
Varlamov didn’t have to rely on the tricks and secrets of the rink, nor his time spent there to deliver the Avalanche their first win of the year.
Varlamov made many key saves as he stood on his head from start to finish, but a couple saves in particular stuck out in the opponent’s minds once the final buzzer sounded.
"I tried to get it up and it was kind of rolling. I couldn't get under it," said Brad Marchand of his in tight opportunity denied by the pad of Varlamov with five minutes remaining in the second period.
After Milan Hejduk scored the first and only Avalanche goal of the season and game at 7:57 of the third period for the game winner, Varlamov was counted on once again to keep his team on top. He stopped a two on one by Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton with style as he got his blocker up high at mind boggling speed.
"Just an incredible save.” Remarked Avalanche head coach Joe Sacco after the game.
“ I originally thought that he missed the net and then I come to find out that he did make a save on it, so obviously that would have been … that was one of the turning points late in the game … it would have tied the game up there," he continued. "Our guys deserve a lot of credit for the way we played today. We came in here with a game plan and our young team stuck to it."
"I thought we had some good urgency to start the game," he added. "The guys were really ready to play. They responded well. That's a tough team to play against. They're a physical team and they use their size very well."
Game winning goal scorer Milan Hejduk echoed his coach’s assessment of Varlamov’s play.
"How he played tonight, it was terrific," said Hejduk. "It's giving us so much confidence. We can go on the offense and create something there."
At the other end of the ice, Boston’s Tukka Rask was almost equal to the task in a solid performance, his first of the season and first start since April 10th in a loss to the New Jersey Devils in the season finale. After that game, he was only in the shadows of Vezina and Hart winning started Tim Thomas as the Bruins went on to win the Stanley Cup.
"He's probably the only bright light on this game today.” Said Bruins head coach Claude Julien.
“Had it not been for him this game could have probably been over much sooner than it was. And he kept us in there and gave us a chance and we just didn't respond."
"Plenty of saves and only one goal," Rask said, "so I guess you can look at that in a good way, too, despite the loss." "For the first game in a long time, I felt pretty good,"
The Bruins have decided to split time up a bit more evenly this year as last season Thomas accounted for 57 regular season games and all # playoff games. Rask appeared in 29 games in 2010-2011, posting a 11-14-2 record with a 2.67 goals against average and .918 save percentage with # shutouts.
"I saw the guy shooting and then I put my glove where I thought it was going," said Rask in reference to Hejduk’s lone goal in the game. "And then it hit something and went in."
Hejduk’s tally was one of great importance after the team was shut out in their season opener against the Detroit Red Wings. The Avalanche are currently the second youngest team in the National Hockey League, and to no one’s surprise it took a veteran to seal the deal.
"I just fired it through traffic. That's what we tried to do the whole hockey game. We tried to have somebody in front of the net and so he can't see the pucks. But he was making all the saves," said Hejduk.
"We got outworked by a team that was a lot more hungry than we were tonight," said Julien. "And throughout the game I felt our team was second on the puck. We're losing the races, and also whenever we got there and got in to battle, they certainly were a lot hungrier than we were. So I think it's one of those games that you hope will give your players the opportunity to realize that what we've talked about since the beginning and every team coming in here and playing us hard is going to happen."
Julien’s Bruins have gotten off to a rather shaky start in their Stanley Cup defending year. The season is too young to call a prognosis on the club, but the looming fear of a Stanley Cup hangover exists, and has proven to be a very real thing.
"We've had two tough challenges to start the season," Colorado center Paul Stastny said. "It's easy to get up for these games, especially playing a team like this -- the defending champs."
"To have one goal in two games and have one win, I think we'll take it," Hejduk noted.
- Kendall Grubbs
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