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In their first game back in Boston after a highly disappointing six-game road swing that brought them just four of a possible 10 points, the Boston Bruins took their frustrations out on the puck to the tune of 41 shots thrown at the Vancouver net. Unfortunately for Boston, all but one of those shots found its way by Canucks goaltender
Eddie Lack, as the Canucks downed the B’s by a 2-1 final.
“I think that the only thing we talk about here is pretty simple. It’s not the offense; it’s the lack of finish,” Boston coach
Claude Julien said after the loss, the club’s eighth in their last 10 games. “I thought we came out there, skated, worked hard, dominated the game. [We] had lots of shots and scoring chances, but the inability to finish is the only reason that we’re sitting here tonight with a loss.”
The Bruins took a 1-0 when
Danny Paille, a healthy scratch the last two games, scored his second goal of the season, and his first since Nov. 21 on net-front scramble that began with a
Carl Soderberg shot, continued
Loui Eriksson swing, and finished with Paille’s chip in.
“Sometimes when you’re in the stretch that I was in it’s good to take a step back before you take two steps forward,” Paille admitted of his struggles and benching. “I think I was just in a bad place for a long time, couldn’t figure out how to get out of it, and after watching the last couple of games just tried to calm down a little bit and at the same time get some anger in there for when I get back in there.”
Vancouver countered on their first shot of the night, as defenseman
Ryan Stanton’s point blast tipped off B’s d-man
Dennis Seidenberg’s stick and by
Tuukka Rask.
A three power play, 20-shot middle frame couldn’t bring Boston the go-ahead goal, though the Bruins thought they scored on a net-front scramble where Stanton appeared to cover the puck, and put the Bruins and Canucks in a 1-1 deadlock through two periods of play.
The Bruins continued their assault on Lack’s net, but it was the Canucks who jumped ahead, as
Zack Kassian scored his ninth goal of the season 6:47 into the third period.
“Our guy was going to go block it and I was trying to look around him and two guys skated, flash screened me there and [I] picked it up late,” Rask, who made 26 stops, said of Vancouver’s strike.
In a frantic search of the tying goal, the Bruins came close, finishing the period with a 13-to-8 shot advantage, but failed to put the equalizer by Lack, dropping to 17-10-4 at home this season.
Random thoughts and notes
- On nights like tonight, what can you really say? Eddie Lack makes 40 saves. The Canucks score two goals that go off Boston players. And you lose by a goal. It’s tough to harp on the end result, really.
“The ratio of goals scored versus scoring chances obviously tonight is going to be the frustrating part,” Julien said. “At the end of the day, you have to live with this loss, but you know, [we’ve] got to continue to play hard and hope that we find ways to score goals like we did in Chicago.”
Some nights, you simply run into a goaltender that’s on. And that’s what happened tonight.
- Boston’s man advantage finished the night 0-for-4. Their movement was great, though. Well, from one unit, anyways. And therein lies the problem for the Black and Gold right now.
Julien has loaded up his first unit, with
Patrice Bergeron, Loui Eriksson, and
Ryan Spooner up front, with
Torey Krug and
Dougie Hamilton on the point. That’s created a second unit that features
Carl Soderberg,
Milan Lucic, and
David Pastrnak up front, with
Reilly Smith and
Zdeno Chara on the backend.
The first unit, again, has been dynamite. The second one, however, notably struggles to find shots.
“I like that we controlled the play and we had chances; didn’t like that we didn’t finish,” Julien said. “Overall, we did a good job of managing the puck and spending most of the power play in their zone. We had lots of chances, so again, you know, there’s only one issue, and we keep going back to it.”
- The B’s were without fourth-line center
Gregory Campbell for tonight’s contest, and will be without the services of No. 11 for at least a week with what the club is calling an upper-body injury.
“He’ll be reevaluated after the week,” Julien said this morning. “So don’t ask me for a week.”
Campbell has six goals and nine points in 54 games this season.
Up next
The Bruins are off until Friday night, when they’ll head to New Jersey for a game against the Devils. The Black and Gold have taken the Devils down in both of their previous meetings this season.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
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