Talking Points: Krug delivers with a big game

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GOLD STAR: Torey Krug was heavily involved in the action at both ends on Thursday night, and appropriately enough scored the only goal during regulation with a wrist shot through traffic in the third period. Krug finished with four shots on net and a whopping 12 shot attempts in his 21:07 of ice time, but was also unfortunately on the ice for the goal allowed by the Bruins almost immediately afterward. Still, Krug finished with plenty of offense created in his 20 plus minutes, a couple of hits and a blocked shot in an active night against a quality opponent. On a night when the Bruins were ravaged by the flu, Krug stepped up and delivered a big game for the Black and Gold.

BLACK EYE: Kyle Connor came into Thursday night as one of the heralded first-round picks from the 2015 NHL Draft that was selected after the Bruins three consecutive mid-round selections, and he’s put up good numbers with the Jets this season. But Connor was thoroughly invisible for the Jets on Thursday night with zero shots on net, one blocked shot and no other impact on a tight one-goal hockey game in 17:33. He wasn’t the only one offensively on a night when only two goals were scored during regulation, but Jake DeBrusk was far better and more impactful in 14 minutes than Connor was with an additional three minutes of ice time.

TURNING POINT: Bruce Cassidy’s decision to elevate Charlie McAvoy from 11th to fourth on the shootout depth chart for the Bruins was a great instinct call, and it ended up delivering the two points. Cassidy kept it pretty simple with an undermanned lineup and got a shootout goal from David Pastrnak while running through Pastrnak, Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand as his top three shooters. But then he went with a feeling that McAvoy would come through just as he did a month ago during a lengthy shootout win over the New Jersey Devils, and this time the young Bruins D-man snapped a shot past Connor Hellebuyck before he even had a chance to react. That gave the Bruins the two points, and handed McAvoy the game-winning shootout goal on his 20th birthday.

HONORABLE MENTION: Tuukka Rask made 37 saves including stopping 16 of 17 shots in the third period and overtime to guide the Bruins to a solid, quality victory over a good Western Conference team in the Winnipeg Jets. The Bruins were mostly good defensively in front of Rask in the early going, but the Bruins goalie had to step up and make some pretty strong saves in the last half of the third period after Winnipeg picked up the game’s momentum. He stayed strong and square to the shooter in the shootout, and won his first shootout game since Nov. 3 of last season when he beat the Lightning in Tampa Bay. Rask is now 10-8-3 on the season and has won five of his last six decisions while collecting 11 of 12 points in those games.

BY THE NUMBERS: 3 – the number of Bruins players that have made their NHL debuts this season with Colby Cave joining Anders Bjork and Jake DeBrusk after suiting up on Thursday night for the illness-ravaged Bruins.  

QUOTE TO NOTE:  “Clearly experience is the best teacher. We went through it. A lot of different things came up [in the season’s first few months], so the adversity is second nature now. No one feels sorry for you. You have got to plod along. I think they understand, as a staff, we’re not going in there making excuses.” – Bruce Cassidy on the Bruins perseverance as illness pulled Ryan Spooner and Riley Nash out of the lineup, and impacted a number of other players as well. 

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