Lessons to Learn from First Home Regulation Loss for Bruins

(Photo: Alan Sullivan)

The Bruins have spent the past few games coming out a little slow, which has often resulted in them being down by one or two goals at some point in the game only to eventually pull out the win. However, that certainly isn’t the best way to play a hockey game. It’s playing with fire and at some point, the team will get burned. For the Boston Bruins it finally happened on Saturday night.

Despite having gotten on the score board first in the game with a tip in off Chris Wagner’s stick from a John Moore one-timer at 13:14, if it hadn’t been for Jaroslav Halak up to that point it could have been a completely different game there in the first period. Wagner’s goal came on just the Bruins’ fourth shot of the period, with their first shot on the Colorado Avalanche’s Philip Grubauer taking almost five minutes to achieve.

Unfortunately for the Bruins they couldn’t get out of the first period with the lead. The Avalanche took advantage of the Bruins inability to clear the puck, despite having four Bruins players around Valeri Nichuskin as he worked his way into the offensive zone. The puck squirted out to Matt Nieto who initially shot on Halak, and Nichuskin was there to pot the rebound at 17:25.

As the teams exited the ice for the first intermission the game was tied, but the Avalanche had outshot the Bruins 9-4.

“The second period ends, I think we were playing a lot better than the score indicates. We just made two mistakes and it ends up in the back of our net. But we were pushing the entire second half of that second period. We’re making plays; we’re holding on to pucks; we’re being hard to play against, hallmarks of our team and, you know, unfortunately they get a bounce here and there and they’re up two. But it stings. You learn from it and we grow as a group,” said Moore.

During the second period neither team had a tremendous number of shots on either goalie. The Avalanche added five more shots to their total for 14, while the Bruins doubled their shots for eight—making some people wonder if the Boston would even get to double digits in shots. The big difference, as Moore mentioned, was that mistakes lead to two of Colorado’s shots going in.

Ian Cole’s goal at 9:17—his first of the season in his 500th NHL game—was in part a result of the Bruins just allowing Colorado too much time to cycle the puck and set it up. Joonas Donskoi made a bit of room for himself which allowed him to send it to Mark Barberio who was in the high slot. Barberio passed it to Cole who, after settling the puck, put a slapshot on Halak, to put the Avs up 2-1.

However, perhaps the more disheartening goal was the one by Andre Burakovsky at 18:21 of the middle frame. The Bruins had just spent a minute in the offensive zone when Donskoi got the puck up to the blue line where Nathan MacKinnon was able to shovel it to Burakovsky who ended up having a lot of time and space to set up his shot. The Bruins had Charlie McAvoy back at the Bruins blue line and Matt Grzelcyk skating hard through the neutral zone. Somehow the two of them got tangled up and with no one to check Burakovsky, the Avalanche were up 3-1 with 1:39 remaining in the second period.

As they had done in past few games, the Bruins poured on the effort in the third, outshooting the visitors 12-6, predominantly a result of some power play time. Ryan Graves was called for a high stick on Sean Kuraly at 5:54 of the third. There was a brief 25 second PK for Boston when Brad Marchand was sent off on a hooking call, but that was negated when Donskoi was also whistled for a high stick on Zdeno Chara. And despite having an additional power play at 17:39 of the third in which the Bruins put six attackers on the ice after pulling Halak, they simply could not get anything in the net. An empty netter by Gabriel Landeskog with three seconds left in regulation sealed the game and handed the Bruins their first regulation loss of the season on home ice and ended their 13-game point streak.

“Yeah, that’s a losing game. You can’t continue to get down by a couple of goals, especially to really good teams. Teams like that know how to win; know how to keep a lead. Regardless of how many times we’ve come back in the past, eventually it’s going to catch up to us and it did tonight,” said Marchand. “We pushed back there at the end, but I think it’s a good game to realize that we’re not going to continue to win by getting down, so… You know, it’s good to lose. Unfortunately, it is good to lose every now and again and get to be able to right the ship again.”

Unfortunately, it is good to lose every now and again and get to be able to right the ship again. — Marchand

Marchand certainly didn’t mean that the team accepted this loss as though it’s no big deal. The players know that it is a wakeup call for them. Their lack of urgency in the first period coupled with some of the mistakes are things that they can change. They got away from their game.

“For us, lack of urgency. We talked about it the other night, again tonight, some of that definitely in our game early on. If we’re on our toes, I think we’re cleaner. I’m not going to say that we’re not going to execute from time to time, but it’s been an issue for us, I think. Some of the unforced errors. If we’re playing the right way, we’re in and out of our end. We’re gone. We go back with it and all of a sudden, we win a faceoff to start a period, we ice it instead of making a play. Now we’re in our end and there’s just a lot of details that are working against us now and we’ve just got to wake up and start playing to our abilities in those situations. And live with the result. Doesn’t mean we’re going to win, but I think we’re leaving plays on the table because our lack of urgency or understanding that teams are coming after us,” said Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy.

It was bound to catch up to them. But perhaps it is better that it happens in December rather than in March. They have time to get back to playing their game, but more importantly coming out in the first period as they have been in the third.