The Bruins, who extended their point streak to 13 games by way of a 3-2 overtime loss to Tyler Seguin and the Stars, are an incredibly tough challenge for any NHL team. But they need to show up on time to truly show it. Back in Boston after Saturday’s shootout win over the Canadiens, the Bruins came out of the gate looking every bit like a team playing on a holiday Monday matinee. And while it didn’t play out to a staggering lead for the Stars -- or a lead of any sort, for that matter -- it was a 12-to-1 advantage in shots that left the Bruins chasing early. “I didn’t think we were early today,… B’s head coach Bruce Cassidy admitted. “They would come right out of their end skating, so our pace wasn’t good enough, our commitment to being in the right spots and winning those pucks wasn’t good enough. There’s things you would like to do, but I just thought we weren’t winning pucks early.… Always quick with a response, though, the Bruins countered. With 13 straight shots of their own -- though that failed to yield the results of a much-needed goal -- it was an obvious that Cassidy’s club, with some line switching and a new strategy for attacking Kari Lehtonen, had flipped their on switch. It would stand as a missed opportunity, however, as the Stars stormed back and scored behind a Stephen Johns shot that beat Anton Khudobin up high, and extended their lead to two just 4:26 later when Alex Radulov scored right off a faceoff. “They get a shot, we can’t give up momentum, we’ve got to get back and get 14 more shots, whatever it takes,… B’s forward David Backes acknowledged. “I think when we got pucks behind them, got in on the forecheck, got pucks in good spots so they couldn’t just get out clean, it was a hard game for them to counter attack. When we put pucks in, let their goalie handle it or let them get facing up ice and make a few passes, they were slicing through us like nothing for the first half of the game.… But when Zdeno Chara gave Boston life with 3:32 left in the period with an uncontested bomb that beat Lehtonen, it was from there that the B’s took over yet again. In a third period that undoubtedly favored the Bruins, at least in terms of high-quality chances, a Ryan Spooner shot trickled through Lehtonen and into the net at the 11:21 mark of the third period, and helped earn a streak-saving point on Garden ice. But left to chase in yet another three-on-three overtime, a delayed penalty and exhausted B’s skaters left the Stars’ Tyler Seguin to by all means dance around a sliding Matt Grzelcyk, David Pastrnak, and Spooner for the game-winning strike. It was the swift gut punch that made this team’s prolonged stretches of brilliance and dominant shifts by all means meaningless, with or without the loser point. “When I look back on the [overtime] games, it seems like we don’t have the puck a lot,… Spooner assessed. “But, I mean maybe just try to have the puck a little bit more. The game against Washington, I think we might’ve touched the puck one or two times, and then tonight we had a couple looks but it wasn’t good enough.…
While there’s obvious comfort in erasing a two-goal deficit and earning a point in a sleepy environment, the big thing to take from this game is the alarming re-discovery of the sluggish starts that without question take the Black and Gold out of their element. That helps turn games like today, which despite Ken Hitchcock’s defensive adjustments and structure added to The Big D’s system should be more than winnable for the Bruins, into coin flips that force the Bruins to pull another comeback rabbit out of their hat. It’s not the way that the Bruins, regardless of a comeback charm that’s given them the league’s 10th-best winning percentage when trailing first, want to play their games. “We definitely want to stay away from that,… said Patrice Bergeron. “I think it’s the wrong way to approach games and, you know, we have to rectify that. Especially when we’re playing a team like Dallas. They play you tight with not too much room so it’s hard to come back. We got it done this time but it’s not going to happen every time obviously.… “I think after the halfway point, we have been as good as anyone in those games. I think when we play the games against the better teams in the league and had great games against them, it’s because we played a full 60-minute game, especially that first 10 minutes,… Backes added. “We set the tone; we don’t wait and wait into it and let them kind of see what they are going to bring tonight and then react to it. We say, ‘here’s our game, good luck dealing with it.’ When we do that, this is a dangerous team. We can roll four lines, we can kill penalties and make good on the power play.…
This and that
- Another trip to Boston for ex-Bruin Tyler Seguin, and I gotta be honest with you guys-- It’s been almost five years and I still don’t feel the sting of this trade like others. Losing Joe Thornton sucked. Losing Phil Kessel was rough, and it took the Bruins about seven years to find a real, natural replacement for that right-side skill -- sorry, Nathan Horton was never that guy -- in David Pastrnak. Hell, even losing Dougie Hamilton seemed to put the Black and Gold in a potentially franchise-altering situation. (Thanks for saving everybody, Charlie McAvoy.)
Is Seguin an immense talent? Obviously. But I’d say that the Bruins have managed just fine without him, and I also don’t think he’d be anything close to the player he is today without that trade. The worst part about the trade has never been losing the player, in my opinion, but rather the measly return and what you’re left with from that deal, which is a whole lot of nothing. Not even one piece!
- Limited usage for the Schaller-Kuraly-Acciari line today. Neither of them logged more than Kuraly’s 8:56 of time on ice, and Schaller’s 15 shifts were tops. They had their struggles.
- Weird stat: With today’s loss, the Bruins are now 0-4-8 all-time against the Stars in overtime. That means that Dallas is one of just two NHL franchises that the Bruins have never defeated in overtime. The Vegas Golden Knights -- y’know, the team that started this year -- is the other. So, there’s that.
Up next
CLAUDEMANIA, BABY.
After a 4-3 B’s shootout win in their first meeting, Claude Julien and the Canadiens will come to Boston for a Wednesday night head-to-head with the Bruins. While there’s probably some bad blood on one side, it has been confirmed that the Bruins will have a video tribute recognizing Julien for his tenure in town, which includes the most wins in franchise history and a Stanley Cup in 2011.