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  • Niklas Svedberg stands tall in Bruins’ Wild OT win

    Post Game

    Niklas Svedberg stands tall in Bruins’ Wild OT win

    Tim Rosenthal December 18, 2014
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    The backup goalie is the toughest position in all of hockey. Yet, the Boston Bruins seem to have another good find with Niklas Svedberg as their No. 2 goaltender behind reigning Vezina Trophy winner Tuukka Rask.

    In the midst of their three-game winless streak, Svedberg stood tall Wednesday night against the Minnesota Wild. The Swedish net minder made 35 saves, including 20 in the second period to keep his team in it throughout the night.

    In a game where things were getting away from the Black and Gold in the second and third periods, Svedberg’s performance stood out and eventually fellow countrymen Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson teamed up to score the overtime winner to give the Bruins a 3-2 victory at the Xcel Energy Center.

    “He’s been good, and you want that from your backup goaltender,” head coach Claude Julien told reporters postgame. “Your No. 1 is going to play most of the games and when you need him, he needs to be ready to play and he was [on Thursday].”

    Compared to some of the other games during this stretch, the Bruins effort wasn’t as strong. They got some lucky bounces going their way, however, as seen with Patrice Bergeron’s knuckle puck goal past Wild goaltender Niklas Backstrom near the end of the first period.

    But Svedberg was able to stop the bleeding and right the ship. He stood tall on Minnesota’s 5-on-3 power play for 73 seconds in the second, but his save of the night, however, came later in the period when he stoned Mikael Granlund on a breakaway.

    Although he allowed the tying goal by Jason Pominville midway through the third, Svedberg was in a zone and the Bruins fed off his effort.

    “He definitely made some huge saves, even on that 5-on-3,” Bergeron told the press. “He made some great saves throughout the game, especially in the second period to keep us in the game, and it was really good for us.”

    Like Anton Khudobin and Chad Johnson before him, Svedberg is giving the Bruins some stability between the pipes. Rask is no question the team’s No. 1 goalie and any thought of a goaltending controversy after the Swede’s performance on Wednesday night would be plain silly.

    Still, the Bruins needed Svedberg to come up big on a second of a back to back and he was able to come up big and at least stop the bleeding for the Black and Gold.

    “It’s always great to get wins. That’s what you play for and that’s what you want to do,” Svedberg said. “It’s nice to come in and get a win. I think we played we decent games and worked really hard, but we didn’t get the result we wanted. Obviously it’s a great feeling to get a win and we just have to build off of it.”

    After a tough stretch, the Bruins are just hoping for any type of victory, especially with a returning David Krejci.

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    Tim Rosenthal

    Tim Rosenthal serves as the Managing Editor of Bruins Daily. He started contributing videos to the site in 2010 before fully coming on board during the Bruins' Stanley Cup run in 2011. His bylines over the last decade have been featured on Boston.com, FoxSports.com, College Hockey News, Patch and Inside Hockey. You can follow Tim on Twitter @_TimRosenthal.

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