Bruins Are Home Wreckers: 6 Notable Numbers from Providence's 3-1 Win

At least one professional hockey team answering to the name “Bruins” has played a game and chalked up a victory within the state of Massachusetts this 2012-13 season.

With a 3-1 decision at MassMutual Center, Boston’s farm club from Providence one-upped three different predecessors Saturday night. That is, it handed the Springfield Falcons their first loss in the final installment of Springfield’s four-game homestand to start the AHL season.

After the Falcons drew a hooking penalty against Bruins blueliner David Warsofsky on their first shift and bagged a power-play icebreaker, Providence perked up to initiate an entertaining arm-wrestling tilt.

From Falcon Nick Drazenovic’s goal onward, Springfield ran up a slim 32-30 edge in the shooting gallery, although its final 34-30 advantage in that category was enabled and inflated by a late, frenetic two-minute, six-on-five drill on the cusp of the final buzzer.

At that point, Providence had paced itself to three unanswered goals—one in each period. And it had stabilized the state of affairs on its own property.

Under the surface of the 3-1 Bruins triumph that docked the Falcons to an identical 3-1 on the season are these intriguing stats.

Two

Points on the night for Max Sauve, who proved to be a generously productive garbage man Saturday.

In the seventh minute of the middle frame, Sauve collected the remnants of a Jamie Tardif rebound and handed things over to Ryan Spooner, who in turn fed defenseman Garnet Exelby for an old-fashioned point blast and the go-ahead strike.

Sauve subsequently finalized the 3-1 upshot by tapping home Zach Trotman’s rebound amidst the final power play with 4:52 to spare. That brought him into a tie with his linemate Spooner for the team lead with four points on the year.

Three

Fighting majors in as many games played this season for winger Bobby Robins, who tangled with Cody Bass at 9:27 of the first period.

Four

Shutout periods on the weekend and in the fledgling AHL career of netminder Niklas Svedberg.

After letting his second test of the night slip by for an early 1-0 deficit at 2:26 of the first period, Svedberg repelled each of the next 32 Falcons stabs. That included eight saves in the rest of the opening stanza, which in part helped to curb the deficit even while Providence played short-handed for 5:51 of the first 14:27 of action.

In his two starts and two winning decisions, Svederg also has yet to surrender an equalizer. He has defended four different one-goal advantages, all of which have either stayed status quo or eventually expanded.

Six

Shots on goal from Craig Cunningham, all of which fell within the first 40 minutes, and one of which tuned the mesh for the equalizer at 5:24 of the first.

Cunningham had entered Saturday’s action with a goal and five registered stabs in his first three games. The team’s reigning top goal-getter and the only P-Bruin to see action in all 76 outings last season is now on pace for 38 strikes in 2012-13.

Eight

Unanswered shots on goal by the collective Providence strike force during the first half of the second period. One of those bids was Exelby’s tiebreaker at the 6:31 mark.

The protracted buzz on Springfield property began shortly after the Bruins had killed their fourth penalty in a span of 22-and-a-half minutes. This came after they had averted a déjà-vu sequence from the preceding stanza by not letting the Falcons take the lead on the power play they had drawn in the first minute. 

When Exelby exited the box at 2:31, precisely four minutes before he beat Falcons netminder Curtis McElhinney, it would be the last of the evening’s short-handed segments for Providence. That, along with the ensuing production, signaled an assertive new grip on the momentum for the visitors.

10

Individual P-Bruins with a plus-one rating, which was the maximum possibility Saturday given that Providence scored each of the game’s two even-strength goals. One of the 10 players putting or inching himself closer or deeper into the black was defenseman Ryan Button, who joined fellow sophomore Kyle MacKinnon in making his season debut.