More Blues for the B’s
Krug scores tying goal in return; Carlo hurt
With nine games left in the regular season, the Bruins have found themselves on an unpromising path.
Not only did an ill-advised Trent Frederic penalty derail the B’s in their 4-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues at the Garden on Tuesday – their third loss in four games – they lost their third top-four defenseman in the past week. This time Brandon Carlo left the game with an undisclosed malady in the first period.
With their loss and the Washington Capitals’ victory over the Flyers, the B’s have just a three-point lead over the Caps. If Washington passes them, they could wind up facing the Eastern Conference leading Florida Panthers. There will be no easy matchups in the first round, but a date with Panthers would not be palatable.
The B’s are usually not in the habit of beating themselves, but that was certainly the case on Tuesday. They were up 2-1 late in the second period when Frederic lost his cool and went after Vladimir Tarasenko after the Blues star knocked him down. Whether it was for his actions against Tarasenko, as the game sheet indicated, or for ripping off Colton Parayko’s helmet (an automatic penalty) in the ensuing scrum, it didn’t matter. It was a bad penalty at that juncture.
Asked what his level of disappointment was with not only the Frederic roughing penalty but how it sunk his team, coach Bruce Cassidy replied succinctly “Very high.”
Frederic sat for much of the third period. While his lack of discipline was the big boo-boo, it wasn’t the only one. The B’s gave up too many odd-man rushes and Blues made them pay for it.
“Our habits were good for half the game, so we’re back to November, where we play half a hockey game and shot ourselves in the foot and couldn’t do enough to recover against a good hockey club. I’ve seen this before. I just haven’t seen it in a while,” said Cassidy. “We were playing pretty good in the second period. We were in their end the whole time, we were playing the way most of our lines are constructed to play. Win a puck, play off the shot, win a puck back. The D are involved but they’re simple, they’re moving it back to the net. And then you get away from that.
“We take a bad penalty obviously, two of them really. (Connor Clifton) shot a puck in the crowd when we talked about moving our feet and getting on our forehand so you can make a strong play. But that’s not on purpose. It’s something we need to keep drilling down. On a faceoff win, we talk about moving our feet to get to better ice and then we force a play into the wall and we don’t manage it well. Those things are a trend. We have to correct them. It’s just really not very intelligent hockey. And you don’t win against good teams when you don’t play intelligent hockey. I think with our effort, we’re trying. Guys are working hard. We’ve just got to be smarter, plain and simple.”
Carlo’s issue, meanwhile, is a bit murky. He left the game at the 10:06 mark in the first period. Hampus Lindholm (knee) and Matt Grzelcyk (upper body) were already out of the lineup.
“He wasn’t feeling good,” said Cassidy. “I guess he’ll get re-evaluated tonight or tomorrow. I was just told he was out for the night.”
Asked whether it was illness or injury, Cassidy said, ”I think it was more injury. That was what I was told. I never thought of it, so I assumed it was an injury.”
Whether it happened on Tuesday or it was something lingering was not clear. In the B’s previous game in Washington he took a borderline hit from behind into the boards by Lars Eller and appeared briefly shaken up, but he finished the game and even spoke with reporters after Tuesday’s morning skate, in which he participated.
The B’s and Blues played a wide open first period that saw a goal by each team in the first 49 seconds of the game.
On the opening shift, Carlo got caught on the wrong side of the red line, allowing Ryan O’Reilly and David Perron to break out on a 2-on-1 against Mike Reilly. When Reilly hit the deck and slid out of the play, O’Reilly fed Perron, who beat Jeremy Swayman with a backhander just 34 seconds into the game.
That lead lasted all of 15 seconds. Brad Marchand hunted a puck behind the net, circled out on the right side and fed Patrice Bergeron for a one-timer to beat goalie Ville Husso. It was his 20th of the season, making it the captain’s ninth straight season of 20 or better and 13th in his career.
It appeared as though the Blues had retaken the lead when old friend Torey Krug banked a puck off Clifton’s leg and past Swayman. But the B’s challenged for an offside and the video review revealed that Robert Thomas was indeed over the blue line ahead of the puck.
Then it was the B’s who took the lead. Erik Haula made a nice backhand pass from behind the net into the slot, where Marc McLaughlin dropped to a knee to get enough oomph on his shot to slip it between Husso’s pads. It was Billerica native’s second goal in as many games at the Garden.
The B’s played well for most of the second period and had numerous chances to push it to a 3-1 lead, especially on a couple of dominant fourth line shifts, but Tomas Nosek couldn’t cash in. But the momentum shifted, both drastically and permanently, late in the period.
After another unsuccessful B’s power play (0-for-2 on the night, stretching it to an 0-for-18 run of futility), Krug did get his goal at 15:10 after Frederic’ s complexion changing roughing penalty
On the advantage, Krug took a short pass from Brayden Schenn at the right point then cut between Marchand and Bergeron before beating Swayman with a sharp wrister from the slot. Krug, who was greeted with a nice ovation and tribute video, also picked up a helper in his return.
“It was fun,” said Krug. “A lot of different emotions throughout the day. It’s been a while since I’ve been back here and in the building. It was capped off pretty nicely with a win for us.”
Then St. Louis forged ahead with 1:48 left in the second. Marchand lost a puck at the offensive blue line to Thomas and the Blues took off on the rush. Inside the B’s zone, Pavel Buchnevic sent a pass into the middle for Thomas, who made a pretty backhand pass to Tarasenko, who was left alone by Clifton. With nobody between himself and Swayman, the sniper sniped, beating the goalie over the blocker.
Tarasenko then made it 4-2 at 9:27 of the third. With the B’s pushing for the equalizer, Charlie Coyle lost a puck high in the offensive zone – he “refuses to shoot the puck toward the net and we had people going there” said Cassidy – and the Blues broke out on a 3-on-1, with Tarasenko finishing it off.
And that was that.