Will the real B’s please stand up?
Need to bring work boots against Rangers
Look to get back to winning ways against Rangers today
Through the course of a National Hockey League season, even one reduced to 56 games, there are few truly big games.
Today’s matinee at Madison Square Garden qualifies as such for the Bruins.
Do not be mistaken. The return match with the Rangers is not the dreaded “must-win” game, though a couple of points would be welcome, especially as the dividing line between playoff and non-playoff teams is getting precariously close for the B’s.
What it is, however, is a mustcompete game, and compete for the full 60 or 65 minutes, not for 15 like they did in Friday’s 6-2 loss to the Blueshirts.
One goal in 13 games is not enough from a player as talented as Jake DeBrusk. Nick Ritchie has been an offensive revelation this season, but a little more edge from him would help. Trent Frederic, to his credit, has brought that nastiness, but he needs to execute simple plays like a chip-out better. Charlie Coyle needs to show he’s ready to be a secondline center, whose $5.25 million annual price tag suggests the Bruins believe that’s his future. While the focus has been on the young defensemen, every one of them has had their hiccups in the last two games.
That’s the micro view. The macro assessment is that this team needs to relocate their DNA. It has shown a stunning fragility the last two games.
“That’s one thing we’ve always been good at, being resilient,” said Brad Marchand. “We’ve always had a really high compete level and I think we’ve gotten a little bit away from that. We just have to get back to competing hard, that being the main part of our game that we have to focus on and everything else will fall into place.”
The coaching staff and now management have sounded the alarm. After calling out by name seemingly half the team after Friday’s loss, coach Bruce Cassidy made changes at the bottom of his lineup, slotting in the thus-far unused Greg McKegg as the fourthline center in Saturday’s practice, moving Sean Kuraly to left wing and inserting Karson Kuhlman. Anders Bjork and Chris Wagner,
two of the players Cassidy mentioned on Friday, appear to be destined for spectator duty today.
On Saturday, GM Don Sweeney claimed 6-foot- 6, 230-pound left defenseman Jarred Tinordi off waivers from Nashville. The move wasn’t so much of a wakeup call for anybody on the back end, said Cassidy, as it was a simple acknowledgment of the current situation. With Jeremy Lauzon and Kevan Miller both out injured, the B’s have suffered from a lack of size and strength on the back end as rookies Jakub Zboril and Urho Vaakanainen have been forced to play up in the lineup.
But the cavalry will be coming for today’s game. Tinordi must go through COVID protocols and will not be available for today’s game while Matt Grzelcyk, who practiced on Saturday, remains doubtful, said Cassidy. The B’s will need to find it within the current group to snap out of this.
The acquisition of the 29-yearold Tinordi, who despite being a first-round pick of the Montreal
Canadiens in 2010 has played just 88 NHL games, feels like a BandAid. It’s safe to say that he would not have been on the B’s radar if they were enjoying full health. But when they can attain full health is anyone’s guess. We can expect Lauzon will be back in a month or so. But the B’s can only hope that Miller’s ravaged knee allows him to be the player he was in the first 15 games of the season again. Cassidy conceded that the situation has the rugged D-man “disappointed.”
“We’re all keeping our fingers crossed,” said Cassidy.
And the claiming of Tinordi brings to mind a certain defenseman who’s three inches taller and about 20 pounds heavier. When the B’s allowed former captain Zdeno Chara to walk over playing time, this observer was not a fan of the move. Chara still has some gas left in the tank, as he’s proving in Washington. But the first quarter of the season changed my mind, and I’m not ready to do the reverse flip-flop yet. For whatever reason,
the departure of Chara has led to an unshackling of Charlie McAvoy, whose offensive skills have taken a giant leap forward. Despite a couple of bad pinches over the last two games, McAvoy is in the running for team MVP right now.
Would that blossoming have occurred if Chara was still here? Sure, it could have, but it didn’t happen in the first three seasons and it’s hard not to think the personnel change had something to do with it. Of course it would be nice to have Chara in the lineup today. The B’s are not in this situation today because they let Chara walk. It is because of injuries. That’s a reason, not an excuse.
But there’s no excuse for the effort that’s been put forth the last two games.
“It’s not acceptable to continue to play like this and we’re going to work our way out of it,” said Marchand. “It may not be pretty, but we’re going to work our way out of it.”
The key word in that prediction is, of course, “work.”