BOSTON — The Bruins did not start Saturday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings like they wanted to atone for their performance in Thursday’s loss, but they still managed to send everyone home happy Saturday.
After erasing an early 2-0 deficit with a dominant second period, Garnet Hathaway gave the Bruins their first lead of the game with his first goal as a Bruin with 6:06 left in regulation. Hathaway scored on a rebound of an AJ Greer shot off goalie Magnus Hellberg to give the Bruins a 3-2 lead, capping off a strong afternoon for the fourth line.
Linus Ullmark, terrific in the third period, then shut it down the rest of the way for their 50th win of the season. The Bruins are the fastest team ever to reach that milestone.
But there were some serious blemishes early on.
The first 10 minutes of the game represented some of the worst hockey in what has been a magical Bruins season season thus far. On an early power-play chance, zone entries remained problematic. David Krejci’s soft aerial pass was picked off just inside the Detroit blue line by Andrew Copp and he immediately went the other way on a 2-on-1 break. Copp kept it for himself and beat Ullmark from the right wing just 1:36 into the game.
It would get worse. When Krejci was called for a hooking penalty, the Wings made it 2-0 at 4:32. With Derek Forbort, one of the Bruins' stalwarts on the penalty kill, taking his turn in the defense rotation to sit, the Wings had terrific puck movement on the PP. Eventually, David Perron made a beautiful backdoor pass to Alex Chiasson for the tap-in.
The Bruins were discombobulated for the first half of the opening period, turning the puck over and losing battles all over the place. At one point, the Wings held a 12-5 shot advantage.
Later in the period, the Bruins did start to tilt the ice in their favor. But their efforts were not on the mark. They took 22 shots in the period but only half made it to goalie Magnus Hellberg. They had a late power play on which they moved the puck well, but they went into the first intermission down by a deuce.
The Bruins kept up the pressure in the second period until they finally got on the board at 12:43. Trent Frederic and Pavel Zacha worked the puck along the left boards before Charlie Coyle dropped it for Hampus Lindholm at the blue line. Lindholm sifted a shot through traffic for his eighth of the season.
Then came a major turning point in the game.
It appeared Dylan Larkin had immediately given the Wings a two-goal lead again when he banked a one-timer in off Ullmark. But what could not be heard over the din was that that Larkin had already been called for slashing Krejci’s stick out of his hands and the Bruins went back on the PP.
On the advantage, Patrice Bergeron redirected a Jake DeBrusk pass through Hellberg’s pads to tie it 2-2 at 14:11.
The Bruins had flipped the game to the point that they held a 29-17 shots on net edge through 40 minutes, while the Wings had blocked 23 shots to that point.
