Bruins Fall to Wild in Second End of Back-to-Back

ST. PAUL, Minn. -Craig Smith and Brad Marchand scored for the Bruins, but the Black & Gold - playing without captain Patrice Bergeron - had their three-game winning streak snapped with a 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center. The Bruins, who lost for just the third time in their last 13 games, overcame a two-goal deficit to tie things up after 40 minutes but Wild forward Jordan Greenway's tally at 7:56 of the third proved to be the difference.
"Unfortunately, they were better than us in the third. It was on us," said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy, whose club was finishing off the second end of a back-to-back. "We didn't manage the puck as well as we need to, playing back-to-back, third period against a hungry team. Third goal we got running around because of that, really. It was a tough shift. It's gonna happen when you're pinned in your end. Credit to them."
More news and notes from the B's Wednesday night loss to the Wild:

Bergeron Sits Out:
The B's captain did not play after returning to Boston to tend to a re-aggravated arm injury that was at risk of infection.
Without Bergeron in the lineup, Tomas Nosek bumped up to play the middle between Marchand and Jake DeBrusk and won 75 percent of his faceoffs.
"I thought he did great, did great on his draws," said Marchand. "We had some good looks in the O-zone…I thought he did good. He's a good player. I like Nosey, I like the way he plays, plays hard, gets in on the forecheck, creates turnovers, so he did a good job tonight."
Marchand did acknowledge, however, that the two have some work to do to figure out each other's tendencies, noting that there was some miscommunication at times, particularly on the breakout.
"He's the best two-way player in the league so there's gonna be a difference," Marchand said of Bergeron. "But it's more just the chemistry aspect where I know where to go when he has the puck, and he knows where to go when I have the puck. There were a couple times tonight on breakouts where Nosey and I weren't in sync and I went to do something as he was making a pass and I wasn't there and vice versa.
"I think it's just communicating as much as we can on the bench and on the ice letting each other know what we want in different situations."
Jack Studnicka was recalled from Providence on Wednesday afternoon but did not make it to Minnesota in time to suit up. As such, Anton Blidh returned to the lineup for the first time since Feb. 17 and played the right side on Boston's fourth. The winger rang a shorthanded chance off the crossbar in the second period that would have put the Bruins ahead, 3-2.
Cassidy did say that Studnicka is likely to find his way into the lineup on Friday night in Winnipeg.
"I'll look at the game first before I say for sure," said Cassidy. "We don't skate [Thursday] but we will skate Friday morning and see how it looks. I thought Anton played well, hadn't been in there for a while. Really could've had the go-ahead goal, tough luck, rimmed one off the bar. Could've been the difference in the game. Certainly, he did his part."

Let's Get Physical:The game was physical from the jump and created a playoff-type atmosphere that was fueled by numerous post-whistle scrums, some monstrous hits, and a heavyweight tilt between Trent Frederic and Brandon Duhaime in the first period two minutes after Kirill Kaprisov notched his first of two goals to open the scoring.
"There's always games you're going to draw comparisons to playoff hockey, and this was as close as we've been in a while," said Cassidy. "Obviously didn't start as well as we'd like. We knew that would be a challenge. But we pushed through it, got ourselves back in the game. They were ready to play physically and eventually we found our physical game. I thought it was pretty good there.
"I think they were looking for [the fight with Frederic], to be honest with you. We kind of quieted that part down. They're a big, physical team, I think they wanted to establish physicality and they did. We pushed back so it ended up being to me just a hard game on both sides. There was a lot of contentiousness if that's a word."
Cassidy thought Coyle, in particular, was heavily involved in the physicality, calling it one of the centerman's "most competitive games in a long time." Coyle mixed it up during several scrums, including a lengthy back-and-forth battle with Minnesota's Tyson Jost, who was making his Wild debut. Charlie McAvoy also engaged in his fair share of the rough stuff, laying a heavy hit on Kaprisov in the third period, which led to a larger scrum in the Bruins' end. The blue liner led Boston with five hits.
"It's a good test," said Coyle. "You wish you'd come out with two points but there's plenty more of those games down the road especially when you get into late April, May, June. That's the type of games we're gonna see. To see them now, it's gonna help us. We can learn from that.
"But you've got to enjoy those games, you want to play in those games and play rough and tough in your own way. It's only gonna help us, win, loss, draw, whatever, it's gonna help us down the road. And we're gonna definitely see more of those."

Marchand Breaks Through:The winger tied the game, 2-2, with a power-play wrister from the high slot just 1:49 into the second period off a nice dish from Coyle. The tally snapped an eight-game scoreless streak for Marchand who hadn't found the back of the net since a two-goal outing at San Jose on Feb. 26.
"It's a game of odds. That's the way hockey goes sometimes," said Marchand. "You have chances right in front and it doesn't go in and you get shots from outside that do. Just got to stick with your game and eventually you'll continue to get the looks. That's when you start to worry a little bit is when you're not getting them. But they're coming so not too concerned."
Smith scored his eighth goal in his last seven games with 3:01 to go in the first period when he collected a Frederic rebound on the doorstep to pull Boston within a goal. His eight tallies since March 1 are tied with Nashville's Matt Duchene, the Islanders' Anders Lee, Toronto's Auston Matthews, and Dallas' Jason Robertson for most in the NHL during that span.