Charlie McAvoy’s first goal lifts Bruins over Blackhawks in OT - Boston Herald

CHICAGO — Charlie McAvoy got rid of the zero next to his name in fine fashion on Wednesday night.

The Bruins’ standout defenseman scored his first goal of the season at 1:19 of overtime to beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 2-1, at the United Center, taking a pretty pass from Jake DeBrusk and scoring on a tap-in past a helpless goalie Robin Lehner.

With his goal-less status weighing on McAvoy far more than he was willing to let on – and his teammates surely knowing that – the formerly snakebitten blueliner found himself on the bottom of a joyous pigpile behind the Chicago net.

“They wouldn’t let me up,” said the grinning McAvoy. “After about 30 seconds, I was like ‘I guess we’re just staying in Chicago tonight.’”

The goal capped off a rather wild final seven minutes or so after much of the game was a tad dull. With 5:19 left in regulation and the score tied 1-1, Chris Wagner took a slashing penalty on a Kirby Dach partial breakaway. The B’s did a strong job of killing that off and then had their own chance to get the go-ahead goal after Zach Smith was called for giving Torey Krug a check to the head. But the B’s not only could not score on the PP, Krug took a penalty in the neutral zone on a Blackhawks’ shorthanded bid.

The result could have been much worse, for it appeared for an instant that the Blackhawks had taken the lead on the delayed call on Krug with 1:05 left in regulation. Drake Caggiula took the puck from Olli Maatta in the neutral zone, gained the blue line and beat Jaroslav Halak with a high wrister. It was immediately waived off, however, because of a whistle. Maatta appeared to have played the puck up to Caggiula with a hand pass, essentially killing the play. While the whistle most likely was correct — there is a slight chance that the puck grazed Maatta’s stick, which would have kept the play alive — some of the Hawks were under the impression that the refs simply blew the call.

“Yeah they made a mistake, blew the whistle. Not much you can say after that. It’s done,” said Hawks’ coach Jeremy Colliton.

It was the second night in a row that the B’s benefited from a ref”s call on a goal. This one at least appeared to be the right call (perhaps unwittingly), not that coach Bruce Cassidy or anyone else in the building had any idea why.

“We heard the whistle on bench. If they had counted it, we would have been, ‘Wait a minute.’ But there was definitely a whistle when they had the puck in the neutral zone,” said Cassidy.

The B’s dodged that one, but still had to kill off 55 seconds of 4-on-3 power-play time at the start of OT, which they were able to do. After getting Krug back and still playing 4-on-4, the B’s went back on the attack.

First Krug, fresh out of the box, was turned away by Lehner on a breakaway. But then, after retrieving the puck deep in his own end, McAvoy started a rush and jumped into the play, catching the Hawks napping to create a 3-on-1. He dished it in the middle to David Krejci, who moved it to DeBrusk on the left wing. With McAvoy charging down the right side, DeBrusk hit him in stride with a perfect pass and the defenseman redirected past Lehner for the winner.

“He’s had a little tough luck. Sometimes he’s over-passed at times as well. Tonight, he had no chance on that one. He had to shoot it,” said Cassidy.

The B’s dominated the first period, outhsooting the Hawks, 16-5, but Lehner (38 saves) kept Chicago in it and the Hawks took a 1-0 lead on an Alex DeBrincat power-play goal at 6:50 of the second thanks to a Brad Marchand turnover. Marchand, a staple on the B’s PK for years, would not take his turn on his turn on the next Bruin kill.

But the B’s tied it up before the period was up, on a hard-working goal by the resurgent Sean Kuraly.

It stayed deadlocked until 1:19 of OT, when McAvoy heaved the 800-pound gorilla ff his back.

“It’s nice,” said McAvoy. “As much as you don’t want to say, you think about it with you’re confidence and everything. You feel like you can contribute a set amount and sometimes when it’s not there it takes a bit of a hit. What I said to these guys is ‘Thanks for keeping my confidence up.’ They all do. Everyone was saying ‘it’s coming, it’s coming.’ Their response there was pretty neat. They were all busting my chops. Hopefully from there I’ll have a little more confidence and hopefully see a few more things go in for me. But as a team that was a big win for us.”

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Charlie McAvoy’s first goal lifts Bruins over Blackhawks in OT - Boston Herald
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