By René Reyes/DFP Staff
Boston Bruins coach Claude Julien had to step aside for a moment during the pregame ceremony that culminated in his players Zdeno Chara, Tim Thomas and Patrice Bergeron and members of the 1972 championship squad raising the B’s sixth Stanley Cup banner to the rafters Thursday night.
The return of the now-retired Shane Hnidy and presentation of the Bruins’ legendary Jacket to Mark Recchi on the TD Garden ice only made the occasion that much more special for Julien, who was faced with keeping his emotions in check and his team focused on its regular season-opener against the Philadelphia Flyers.
“I was doing my best to keep my mind at doing my job and the game,” Julien said. “It was emotional, I think, to say the least, and when you see the highlights and when you see your players going around the ice with the Cup, I felt proud for them. Emotionally, it was tough for me. I kind of walked away for a while and came back and, you know, it just goes to show you the emotions that go into those things.
“Even seeing Mark Recchi and Hnidy that were here – you know, guys that really played big parts in different ways in helping us succeed – to see them with the group, and it was their last opportunity to be with the team, on the ice with them, those kind of things kind of hit home.”
But leave it to the Flyers to crash the Bruins’ party. Forwards Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek each tallied a goal and netminder Ilya Brzygalov, Philly’s $51 million free-agent acquisition this offseason, stonewalled the B’s offense in the last two periods en route to a 2-1 victory before a raucous and sold-out crowd at the Garden.
It didn’t take long, however, for the Bruins to strike first.
Brad Marchand started his sophomore campaign right where he left off during the Bruins’ Stanley Cup run last summer, when he tallied 19 points (11 goals, 8 assists) in 25 playoff games. The pesky 5-foot-9 left winger received a beautiful leading pass from teammate Tyler Seguin and beat Brzygalov (22 saves) with a forehand-to-backhand finish at 9:42 of the first frame.
The backhand move on his power-play goal was totally intentional too, Marchand said.
“I knew I was going to, yeah,” Marchand quipped when asked if he knew he was going to backhand the shot as he approached Brzygalov. “I wanted to come across. I’m not going to say that I meant to go where it went but it went in. That’s all that matters.”
Immediately following Marchand’s score, Seguin peppered Brzygalov with two shots, one of which clanked off the right post. The 19-year-old center made his presence felt throughout the contest, registering three shots and finishing with 17:20 of ice time (4:31 on the power play). With Recchi’s retirement and Michael Ryder’s departure to the Dallas Stars, Julien will be relying more on Seguin to contribute on a consistent basis in his second full year in the NHL.
Seguin said there’ve already been some noticeable differences in his game since last season.
“I think since after the playoffs, I know what I want to keep continue improving on and that was really my core and my compete level,” Seguin said. “Keeping that hunger at a consistent basis. And there were times tonight where I thought I was doing a good job, and then in the third, I thought I could have done a better job on a couple plays.”
For one night at least, the Flyers solved the “battlefly” – not to mention the reigning Vezina Trophy and Conn Smythe Award winner – that is Thomas (27 saves) in that opening period. Philadelphia answered with two quick goals of its own in a span of 47 seconds to take a 2-1 advantage they would not relinquish.
With Bruins forward Nathan Horton in the penalty box for slashing, the Flyers tied the game at the 19:10 mark when Giroux weaved his way through traffic and deposited a forehand shot under Thomas’ right pad before crashing into the net. Forward Jaromir Jagr, playing in his first game back in the NHL after spending three seasons in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League, recorded an assist on the play for his 1,600th career point.
Thomas was then forced into stopping a shot by Philly defenseman Andrej Meszaros from the right point. But Voracek picked up the loose disk from the slot and wristed the game-winner with 2.4 seconds remaining in the first session, slipping it through Thomas’ five-hole and quieting the home fans in a heartbeat.
After riding the adrenaline from the banner raising ceremony to such a blazing start, the Bruins lost their legs, according to Julien, and were not able to recover from those two Philly goals. Despite attempting 11 of their 23 shots in the third and final period, the B’s couldn’t find the equalizer.
“I think it was the two goals at the end of the period there, kind of put a damper on things,” Marchand said. “We had a pretty good first and then you know, they get a couple quick goals at the end, it kind of takes the life out of your sails so that stuff happens, but you have to learn how to regroup and bounce back from that.”
Bruins assistant captain Patrice Bergeron agreed.
“Those two goals kind of hurt us and put us back on our heels,” Bergeron said. “I thought the first period most of it was ours. The first fifteen minutes in I thought we generated a lot of chances and we were playing well but those two goals hurt us. We didn’t find a way to come back and weren’t playing our game in the second period.
“And in the third, I thought we did that. We had some good chances and we’ve got to find a way to score goals.”
Julien wasn’t too concerned with the disappointing result, though. It was just the defending Stanley Cup champs’ first test in a long and grueling 82-game schedule.
“We didn’t seem to go up the ice as a unit, and I think there’s a lot of things in our game tonight that just wasn’t characteristic of our team,” Julien said. “I think the guys realize it. I think we understand we got to be a lot better at that next game. It’s game one of 82. As I often say, we’ll learn from this, but we need to get better, and we understand, and we will get better.”
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