Joe McDonald, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Griffith lone bright spot in loss to Wild

BOSTON -- Playing a rookie on the top line had some concerned, but Seth Griffith is proving to be a valuable commodity for the Boston Bruins.

Despite a 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Wild Tuesday night at TD Garden, Griffith scored two goals and assisted the another for the Bruins. The second-year pro has impressed since the start of training camp, and since he has the ability to make plays as a natural right wing, Bruins coach Claude Julien thought Griffith would be a good fit alongside David Krejci and Milan Lucic.

Both of Griffith’s goals against the Wild resulted from the 5-foot-9, 192-pounder crashing the net with reckless abandon. He played with a mentality of “it’s either score a goal or it’s death by goalpost.”

With Minnesota leading 1-0 late in the first period, Griffith scored his first goal of the game. Krejci controlled the puck along the left wall and produced a nifty tape-to-tape saucer pass from the faceoff circle to Griffith, who redirected it past Niklas Backstrom to tie the game at 1-1 at 18:23.

Griffith scored his second goal, giving Boston a 2-1 lead, at 5:23 of the second period. Lucic made a nice play at the blue line to get the puck to Gregory Campbell, who showed patience and waited for a sprawling defender to take himself out of the play. Campbell then fed a streaking Griffith, who slammed home the goal and then tumbled through the air before crashing into the end wall.

Griffith later assisted on Lucic’s power-play goal to give Boston a 3-1 lead, one the Bruins would relinquish as the Wild scored three unanswered goals in the third period.

Griffith was more concerned with the loss than his solid performance.

“It’s kind of hard to be happy,” Griffith said. “Obviously, the win is more important. It’s too bad we didn’t have a very good third.”

As critical as Julien was of the team’s overall game, the coach was pleased with Griffith’s effort.

“Well, that’s probably the brightest thing of the night for us, was the fact that Seth really played a strong game,” Julien said. “That line last year scored a lot of goals from guys driving the net, and he did a great job of driving the net every time. He got rewarded for it and he also made a nice play there on Looch’s goal. If there’s somebody that should be walking out of here with his head up high, it’s him.”

After former Bruins right winger Jarome Iginla signed with the Colorado Avalanche as a free agent on July 1, Boston had a vacancy on its top line. Julien and Krejci both said they were excited with the possibility of Loui Eriksson moving up to the right side, but after Krejci suffered an undisclosed injury and missed the first three games of the season, Julien was forced to reunite Eriksson with Carl Soderberg and Chris Kelly.

That trio quickly regained its chemistry from a season ago, so when Krejci returned, Griffith was given an opportunity on the top line. Krejci has been impressed with his new linemate.

“It’s good to see him get two goals, especially goals like that that he drives the net, so that’s what you want from your teammate, to drive the net,” Krejci said. “Looch did the same thing, so if some guy drives the net that means it opens up some room for our players. I thought he played well. Hopefully he can build on this and play the same way the next game.”

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