WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- The Boston Bruins have had enough of rookie sensations, so Patrik Laine had best be on his toes.
Boston fell to the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-1 Saturday night, when Mitch Marner, last year's Canadian junior player of the year, scored the winner. Now the veteran-laded Bruins want to remind the Winnipeg Jets on Monday that there is a reason why the most common adjectives used to describe them are "big" and "bad."
The only saving grace for the Bruins from the road loss was they kept Toronto's Auston Matthews, who scored a record four goals in his first NHL game, off the score sheet. But when there is more than one roadrunner on a team, shutting down the fastest one doesn't guarantee victory.
"We told our guys they would be fast," Bruins coach Claude Julien told the Boston Globe, "and that they would have to fight to get to those positions. That's where our team didn't do a good enough job. A few times we had opportunities we didn't stop in front of the net. We skated by. (Brad) Marchand at the end, if he puts on the brakes, he gets a goal there on a (David) Pastrnak pass. But he did a fly-by there."
The Jets, like the Bruins, come into their third game of the season with a record of 1-1-0.
Winnipeg is grasping for answers to what went wrong Saturday night in St. Paul, Minn., when the Jets jumped out to a 2-0, first-period lead only to give up the next four goals en route to a 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Wild. Perhaps the most frustrating part for Jets coach Paul Maurice was the fact his troops mustered a whopping eight shots on net during the last two periods, and one of those came from center ice.
"All things open up after chaos gets created, and we didn't create enough chaos in the offensive zone to create some of the plays we were looking for," Maurice said.
Laine, the Jets' rookie sensation who was selected No. 2 in last spring's draft behind Matthews, had a goal and an assist in Winnipeg's 5-4 opening-night victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday. However, he was held pointless against the Wild, despite spending most of the night on the top line with winger Blake Wheeler and center Mark Scheifele.
The ever-impatient Jets fans, who have used Ondrej Pavelec as their punching bag for the past four years, are calling for the recall of the recently demoted goalie after Connor Hellebuyck and Michael Hutchinson each gave up four goals in his first starts of the season.
They also were crying foul after Maurice banished winger Joel Armia and defenseman Ben Chiarot to the press box against the Wild and inserted and right winger Chris Thorburn and rearguard Mark Stuart in their place. Center Alex Burmistrov also dressed for his first game of the year against the Wild, filling in for Bryan Little, who is out indefinitely after sustaining a lower-body injury against Carolina on Thursday.
