Bruins can't solve Giguere in loss to Avalanche
BOSTON — He may be Colorado's backup goaltender now, but Jean-Sebastien Giguere still can be something nasty in net. The 36-year-old Giguere, formerly of Anaheim Ducks fame, dealt the Bruins their first shutout in 72 games on Thursday night, turning aside 39 shots to give the Avalanche a 2-0 victory before another full house at TD Garden.
It was Giguere's first appearance of the season.
The loss was the Bruins' first of the season after two wins, while Colorado is now 4-0 — its best start since the franchise moved from Quebec to Denver in 1995.
The Bruins weren't shut out all last season, including playoffs. Their last blanking was a 1-0 loss to Ottawa on Oct. 10, 2011.
Chris Kelly and Johnny Boychuk hit posts in the first period for Boston, which came out a little sluggish after four days off. The Bruins loosened up as the game progressed, but they couldn't solve Giguere, who posted the 37th shutout of his career and his first against Boston.
The Bruins fell behind in the first period, 1-0, and it stayed that way. They pressed feverishly for the equalizer in the third period, outshooting the Avs, 29-16, over the final two periods.
Milan Lucic, the Bruins' top scorer (1-2-3) so far, sat out the first 11:20 of the third period after drawing a 10-minute misconduct for shoving Colorado's Gabriel Landeskog. He had tried to engage Landeskog in a fight with 50.3 seconds left in the second period to fire up his team, but the Avs' captain smartly refused while continuing to chirp at Lucic, who lost his cool.
'It's certainly not what you want as a coach,' Bruins coach Claude Julien said. 'An important player like that, you'd rather have him on the ice. I thought it (the call) was a bit soft, to be honest with you.'
Lucic conceded the point that he probably overreacted.
'I was fired up, and unfortunately I got 10 minutes for it,' he said.
Still, the Bruins pressed in the third period. Their best chance came when Jordan Caron, who had a strong game overall, moved in close and got off a wrist shot that Giguere somehow gloved from 20 feet away.
'We obviously need to do a better job offensively,' Patrice Bergeron said.
'Yes, their goalie played a good game, but we've got to make it a little tougher on him,' Julien agreed.
'What we have to do is get a little bit more traffic in front of a hot goaltender and take his eyes away,' the coach said. 'We didn't do a good job of that. ... I don't think I'm really disappointed in the effort more than we've got to find a way to win those games, and we didn't do that.'
Boston's slow start could have been due to its long layoff.
'You don't want to use it as an excuse,' Lucic said, 'but when you're sitting around watching other teams play, and you've only played two games in the first week, you kind of want to get things going. But it's just one of those things. We have to be prepared.'
The Avs got off to a 3-0 start using goalie Semyon Varlamov, who stopped 88 of 91 shots (.967) while allowing one goal in each victory.
The Bruins went 0 for 3 on the power play and allowed their first power-play goal of the season, finishing 3 of 4 on penalty-killing. The Bruins had trouble keeping up with the speedy Avalanche early, and it showed on the scoreboard as Colorado led, 1-0, after the first 20 minutes.
It was a power-play goal in the final minute of the period that put the Avs ahead. Ryan O'Reilly, camped between the hash marks, deflected Andre Benoit's wrist shot from just inside the blue line past goalie Tuukka Rask (28 saves) with 39.3 seconds left. David Krejci had gone into the penalty box for hooking with 1:06 remaining.
It easily could have been a 2-0 deficit if not for Rask, who turned aside Nathan MacKinnon's shot at the end of a two-on-one, short-handed break in the game's third minute. O'Reilly, racing down the left side, sent a perfectly timed pass across ice to a streaking MacKinnon, but Rask flashed out his left skate to stop the shot at the left post at 2:50.
Jamie McGinn was in the penalty box for goaltender interference after he crashed into Rask trying to reach a cross-ice pass on another odd-man rush by Colorado.
After Colorado's Patrick Bordeleau ran Dennis Seidenberg behind the Boston net in the second period, Shawn Thornton — despite giving away 4 inches and 10 pounds to the 6-foot-6, 225-pound Bordeleau — took exception and squared off with the Avs' big man at 8:15. It was mostly shadow boxing and grabbing, but Thornton's effort still had to be commended.
Contact Bud Barth at hbarth@telegram.com.
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