Stuck in rut offensively, Bruins fall to Penguins
Mixing up lines does little to help
The same old problems dogged the Bruins in their 4-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday night at PPG Paints Arena. But this time, they added a different subplot to the narrative.
Again, the B’s could not find the back of the net 5-on-5, despite otherwise playing pretty well and landing 43 shots on net. But on top of that old tale, goalie Jaroslav Halak, so good this year, appeared to have hit a wall in his relief run for the injured Tuukka Rask.
And now, with the B’s on a two-game losing streak and winners of just two games in their last seven, they will have start a rookie in net — either Daniel Vladar or Jeremy Swayman — for the rematch tonight. If that wasn’t enough to give B’s fans sweaty palms, the Flyers beat the Rangers in overtime on Monday to draw within a point of the B’s for the last East Division playoff spot.
Without a doubt, these are shaky times for your Bruins. The post-game commentary out of the B’s room accentuated the positive, and perhaps that’s just as well. With no evenstrength goals in four of their last five games, selfflagellation might have only deepened the season threatening rut in which the B’s are currently residing.
“They generated enough to win the hockey game. You’ve got to finish, I know that, I’m stating the obvious here. But I’m more concerned when you don’t generate,” said coach Bruce Cassidy, his team’s lifeless effort against the Rangers on Saturday still on his mind. “I believe there’s enough talent in there to get enough goals. I’m not going to sit here and tell you we’re going to be one of the highest scoring teams, until we do get some more finish and more confidence. But we generated enough tonight to score more the Pittsburgh. But we didn’t finish very well. And they did.”
The one thing the Bruins had been able to count on this year has been good goaltending. But with Rask on the shelf and Halak playing in his fourth straight game, the B’s had a good first period wasted on a couple of softies.
The B’s peppered Pittsburgh goalie Tristan Jarry with 20 shots in the first, two more shots than they were able to muster in the entire game on Saturday. They were also winning their share of the battles, outhitting the Pens 19-8.
The B’s took the first lead of the game after Bryan Rust took a slashing penalty on Brad Marchand. After going 0-for-5 on the PP on Saturday, Cassidy went back to what had been working before Saturday, putting Nick Ritchie back on the first unit as a netfront presence. That paid immediate dividends. With Ritchie parked in front, Matt Grzelcyk got his first of the year behind Jarry, a nice shot that went off the post and in.
Everything was going well for the B’s until there was 3:09 left in the period. That’s when Evan Rodrigues, operating at the outside of the left circle, fired a harmless-looking shot that Halak could not handle with his glove and the puck trickled behind him.
If that didn’t sag the skaters in front of Halak, the Pens got one more 1:43 later on a Sidney Crosby goal that was almost as bad as the first one. Jake Guentzel was given too much time and space in the middle of the ice and he dished to Crosby down low on the right side. It appeared that Halak had cut off the shortside, but he left a hole between his left arm and body and Crosby’s shot somehow found the daylight for the 2-1 lead.
“He wasn’t good in the first period, but he’s played lot of hockey for us lately, a lot of good hockey. But you have to push back, right? He’s bailed us out lots of times,” said Cassidy.
For Cassidy, the killer was the Penguins’ third goal in the second period. Grzelcyk and Connor Clifton had chances to move the puck up and out of the zone but mismanaged it behind the B’s net and Clifton had to take a tripping penalty. The Pens made it count to make it 3-1. Crosby hit Evgeni Malkin on the right side of the slot and Halak’s glove hand was no match for Malkin’s hard snap shot at 8:20. That was Malkin’s 1,000th career point.
“You’re going to be in lower scoring hockey games and you have to be clean and you have to be smart. You have to make good decisions with the puck,” said Cassidy.
The B’s still had chances to climb back in it. Jake DeBrusk was turned away on two shorthanded bids on the same second period penalty kill. They also had three more chances on the power play on which they couldn’t capitalize. On the last one that started with 6:48 left in the game, David Pastrnak had an open net on a backdoor play but heeled it wide.
A goal there would have made it interesting, but it didn’t happen and Guentzel finished it off with an empty-netter.
With the B’s season seemingly teetering on the edge, Brad Marchand believes the focus needs to be not on the end results right now but rather how those results are derived.
“Obviously, it’s not acceptable to continue to go up and down, have a good game and bad game. But our biggest thing is it’s OK if you lose and you have your best effort on the ice,” said Marchand.
“We don’t want to continue down the road where we’re not playing our best hockey. If you play your best hockey every night, then you’re going to win more than you’re going to lose. You’re not going to walk through this league, there’s a lot of good teams, especially in our division. That’s what we have to get to and we’re more focused on, not the outcome but the process, how we need to play each night, the accountability that we need to bring to each other. Just bring your best game each night. And if we do that, we’re going to win more games than we’re going to lose.
“We’re just too good of a team. We have too much depth. Obviously, every team goes through injuries and we need to balance that and work through that, especially now. If you can go through that adversity, it builds character and that’s something we’ve always been good with. But we’re not panicking in our room, by any means. We always seem to be able to bounce back. And we had a good game. We had a really good game. If we continue to build on that and work like that each night, we’re going to be fine.”