Marat Khusnutdinov couldn’t believe it at first.
With the Bruins in need of a tally during their shootout round against the Islanders, Marco Sturm tapped on the 23-year-old winger’s shoulder.
“He was actually pretty funny,” Sturm said of Khusnutdinov’s reaction to being picked for the shootout. “He looked at me, he’s like, ‘Me?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He was like, ‘OK.’”
The Russian-born forward was the second Bruin to hit the ice for the extra session after Casey Mittelstadt, with Sturm turning to Khusnutdinov as the next man up over Boston’s top scorers in David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie.