B’s show no good deeds
Get sloppy in OT loss to Wings
BRUINS NOTEBOOK
Rookie Filip Zadina scored on a 2-on-1 just 24 seconds into overtime to lift the Detroit Red Wings to a 3-2 victory over the Bruins at the Garden last night, the second preseason OT win over the B’s in five days.
It was a sloppy, mistakefilled game, and the Bruins made a few more of them than the Wings did. It was the kind of game the B’s don’t want to show when they open the season less than a week from now.
“A lot of it is some of the guys who played tonight and have been in the league haven’t played a lot, so I think there’s still in circling mode and not in detail mode so we’ll have to address that,” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “That was certainly part of it. I thought the ice conditions were soft. Pucks were bouncing and guys were getting frustrated. But it’s the same for both teams. The onus is on us then to get it to the net and go for second chances.
“I thought we tried to be too cute. We all saw that. We don’t have to go down the list of guys. We’re just going to have to get it squared away shortly. I have faith in those guys, but they have to acknowledge where they’re out and start digging in.”
Cassidy and management got another look at center hopefuls Trent Frederic and Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson and they again looked like they’re not quite there yet. But no decision has been made.
“We just have to figure out now ‘Are we willing to go with one of those guys?’ I can’t sit here and tell you unequivocally that, ‘yeah, he’s my third line center.’ I’m not going to do that. I thought they both had pockets of good hockey,” said Cassidy.
Provided everyone’s healthy, the B’s four centers to start the season could be Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Sean Kuraly and Noel Acciari, who played his first game of the preseason. But those are decisions still to be made.
The B’s got goals from David Pastrnak and Lee Stempniak and 33 saves from Jaroslav Halak, but lost a two-goal lead to Detroit power-play goals from Gustav Nyquist and Dennis Cholowski before Zadina won it in OT.
Torey Krug played his first game of the preseason as he’s coming back from a broken ankle and, as one might expect, the defenseman had his struggles with the puck.
Bergeron gets ready
For the record, the Bruins believe Bergeron will be ready to play Game 1 next Wednesday in Washington D.C. But back injuries being unpredictable maladies, the B’s are exploring contingency plans.
On of those options was on display in the last night with David Backes the latest placeholder between Brad Marchand and Pastrnak.
“Bergie hasn’t played yet. We had used the young kids in there so this was just a little tinkering,” said Cassidy. “(Backes) has played center before obviously. Let him skate, have some fun with those two guys hopefully. We feel Bergy is progressing well and will be ready. If there were to be a setback, then at least Backs has been in the middle a little bit. I don’t think it’s a bad option in the short term if we had to go down that road, which I don’t think we will. We were just spit-balling the other day and decided to throw him in there.”
Bergeron did not skate on Wednesday, which was a scheduled day off, but is scheduled to skate today, which is the rest of the team’s day off. Cassidy said the hope is Bergeron will then practice tomorrow with the team.
Backes played right wing pretty much during camp until yesterday, with Cassidy trying different players as his center on the third line.
“We really wanted to look long and hard at those three young kids,” said Cassidy of Frederic, Jack Studnicka and Forsbacka Karlsson. “(Colby) Cave and (Jordan) Szwarz have played down there in Providence as well. Kuraly was the other one. We wanted to see him and how he handled more responsibility but unfortunately he got injured. He did do that in the one game he played and played a lot of minutes in Washington, so that threw the next phase of that (experiment). We weren’t planning on it, assuming Kuraly is healthy and we’re assuming Bergy would be so. But if they’re both out down the road, then we have to look to everything.”
In the game, Backes played 17:32 with two shots on net, a couple of hits and was 9-for-14 on faceoffs.
Changes
Studnicka was sent back to his junior Oshawa Generals club. Not a big surprise. He might be the most promising of their young centers, but the 19-year-older is also the most green.
Anton Blidh, Cave, Cody Goloubef, Mark McNeill and Szwarz all cleared waivers. The first four were assigned to Providence while Szwarz was kept in camp. Goalie Daniel Vladar was also assigned to Providence . . . .
Kuraly, Jakub Lauko, Ryan Fitzgerald and Jakub Zboril, all nursing minor injuries, skated prior to the team’s practice.