This whole one night off, one night on game the Bruins are currently playing is a dangerous one at that.
In Thursday’s 4-0 shutout of the New York Rangers, it was all unicorns and rainbows for a Bruins team that rebounded from a 2-1 shootout loss two days prior.
Jake DeBrusk finally scored a five-on-five goal, David Krejci scored his first of the season and the Bruins got as much of a complete effort as they’ve had all season.
But with all the positives that developed Thursday, the Bruins continued a troubling trend Saturday afternoon, failing to string together two consecutive wins, something they haven’t done since Feb. 10 and Feb. 11.
“What we call it is “A… and “B… games. You can have a “B… game, you’re not always going to have your “A… game, but you better bring your damn “B… game and at least do something to help the team win. Whether that’s block a shot, kill a penalty, check well, etc,… said head coach Bruce Cassidy.
“We just didn’t have that. We were well down the alphabet after “A… and “B… tonight, unfortunately.…
The Bruins have put forth some ugly efforts this season, but Saturday’s was by far the worst. Arguably their worst in recent memory for that matter.
"However you stack them up, it's unacceptable," said Cassidy. "Your effort has to be there every night. Effort and execution fall on the players. We didn't execute well, that's gonna happen. Our effort, it was not there, that's atypical with this group. That's the most disappointing thing today, our complete lack of effort and push back."
On top of the injuries already hampering the team, the Bruins were without Jake DeBrusk and Zach Senyshyn on Saturday. DeBrusk landed on the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list Saturday morning while Senyshyn suffered an upper-body injury Thursday night.
It’s no secret that if the Bruins are going to be successful, most of their success is going to come for the Patrice Bergeron line, their top trio. When they have the rare off night, goals are hard to come by.
With the Rangers successfully executing their game plan on the Bergeron line, completely taking the line out of the picture on Saturday, the Bruins were left searching for secondary scoring that they simply don’t have.
In the 6:28 of five-on-five ice time that Brad Marchand, Bergeron and David Pastrnak had together, they had just one shot attempt. They failed to generate any scoring chances while allowing four to the Rangers.
With Marchand in the lineup after being labeled a game-time decision, the Bruins did themselves no favors by giving the Rangers five power play opportunities, forcing Bergeron to chalk up a lot of penalty kill minutes.
“He obviously was off,… Cassidy said of Marchand “Bergy was killing more penalties than we’d like, so that might have affected his energy level. They’re gonna have off nights. We need other people to pick us up and they’ve got to get going. We just need other people to get going. That’s what good teams do. We did not do that today.…