I feel like all I have written about of late has been the battle in goal for the Bruins, the production from the top line, and the lack of secondary scoring. But unfortunately, that's all that is happening with the Bruins through 12 games.
Kicking off a quick two-game road trip in North Carolina against the surging Hurricanes, Jaroslav Halak stole the show yet again, making 42 saves on 44 shots. Behind Halak's 42 saves and two goals from Brad Marchand, the Bruins knocked off the Hurricanes 3-2.
The key story in Tuesday's victory was once again Halak. The Hurricanes threw everything but the kitchen sink at him and he stood tall, keeping the Bruins in the game, leading to Marchand's game-winning third period goal.
I'm not going dive into why Halak was brought in, Rask's "title" and both of their roles coming into the season. We've been there and done that. What I want to talk about is how Halak has absolutely earned himself the next start in Nashville Saturday, and has earned the majority of the starts for the next few days until he shows he no longer deserves them.
It's quite simple: Halak is playing the better hockey of the two goaltenders and is giving the team their best chance at picking up two points night in and night out.
Rask is going to figure it out at some point, he's too good of a goalie not to. It's hard to see Halak sustaining this type of success as the season rolls along. Once Halak comes back down to earth, Rask will need to be there to shoulder the load. But until we get to either, or both of those scenarios, Halak deserves the bigger workload.
I don't buy for a second into the idea some fans have that guys will try harder, or play differently depending on who is behind them in goal. I think that's crap. These guys want to win every night, why would who is in goal behind them change that?
With that being said, the Bruins look like a much more comfortable and confident team in front of Halak. They'll never tell you this, but they have more confidence in Halak at the moment and it shows.
Cassidy juggles lines With the Bruins not getting much offensively halfway through the game, head coach Bruce Cassidy swapped David Pastrnak and Jake DeBrusk on the right side of the Bruins top two lines. The change seemed to spark the two lines as the Bruins brought a whole new offensive game to the table.
With Pastrnak's goal coming on the power play, the second line had nothing to show for it, but I thought they played very well after the swap. I'm still not sure I want to see Cassidy break up Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak permanently, but I am not opposed to quicker in-game swaps when things aren't going in their favor.
The swap didn't slow down the Bergeron line, however. With DeBrusk to their right, Marchand and Bergeron looked right at home, dominating in all three zones.
It was nice to see Marchand picking up two goals. With the hot starts to the season for Bergeron and Pastrnak, Marchand hasn't been shooting the puck as much as we have come to know from him. With the play of Pastrnak and Bergeron, I understand why he's been more pass heavy than usual.
But on Tuesday, Marchand had a team high and season high five shots on goal. He had six combined shots in his previous four games.
Torey Krug makes season debut Making his season debut on Tuesday, Torey Krug jumped right into play, looking like the Krug of old. After shaking off the rust in the first period, Krug settled in nicely and made a big difference on the power play.
The power play has been lackluster of late, but the return of Krug seemed to spark the man advantage as they scored twice on five power plays.
Back in his normal spot quarterbacking the power play, the play ran through Krug and immediately the power play came to life.
Krug picked up an assist on Pastrnak's tally.
Big minutes for Zdeno Chara and Brandon Carlo
Even with Krug back in the mix, the Bruins blue line is a bit thin. Kevan Miller remains out with a hand injury, Matt Grzelcyk is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury and Charlie McAvoy was placed on injured reserve Tuesday with an upper-body injury.
With rookie Jeremy Lauzon and eighth defenseman Steven Kampfer in the lineup, the top pairing of Chara and Carlo were asked to log some key minutes.
Chara finished with a game high 27:52. Carlo finished behind Chara with 24:15.
Given the circumstances Tuesday, Chara and Carlo needed to play big time minutes, but moving forward the Bruins need to do a better job spreading out minutes on the backend, especially for Chara.
Of course, when and if the Bruins get healthy on the blue line, limiting Chara's minutes will be easier to do. But any amount of milage they can save with Chara will benefit the Bruins in the long run.