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There’s no way around saying it anymore.
Following a 2-1 shootout loss to the Florida Panthers at BB&T Center, and with the Ottawa Senators winning once again (moving themselves within one point of Boston and thus taking the B’s fate out of their own hands by virtue of Ottawa’s game in hand), the Boston Bruins are in trouble.
Especially when they continue to fall by way of issues they’ve battled since the season began.
The Panthers struck first behind Massachusetts-born forward Jimmy Hayes’ net-front shovel through Tuukka Rask, his 18th of the year, with 14:41 gone in the first. Hayes’ access to the front of the net came on some questionable defensive play from the Bruins’ second pairing, an obvious concern throughout the year, as nobody picked off the pass (or even got a stick on it to redirect it) that made its way to the slot, and held as the game’s lone goal through 20 minutes of play.
Boston countered behind Patrice Bergeron’s power-play goal, No. 37’s 20th goal of the season, 2:52 into the second, and skated to a 1-1 stalemate after two periods.
But the B’s bad habits were at every turn.
On a 2-on-0, David Pastrnak failed to get a single shot on net. And in the shootout, a thorn in the B’s side all season long, they went 0-for-3 and have now dropped nine of their last 10 shootouts.
Random thoughts and notes
- It sure seems like Claude Julien is done babying Reilly Smith. Scratched for the first time this season tonight (actually, this was the first game that Smith had missed since coming to Boston in the Seguin trade in 2013), the Black and Gold sent a message to the slumping 23-year-old.
So, to recap, since signing a two-year extension worth just under $7 million dollars, Smith has recorded as many healthy scratches as points (eight games). This looks absolutely terrible on both the Bruins and Smith. It’s been a down-year in general for Smith, as he’s been more of a passenger than anything else on the Bergeron line, while Julien has tried everything he can to get him going.
And Peter Chiarelli’s decision to make Smith a priority signing, again, is a puzzling one given how hot-and-cold he’s been all season long. They finalized the deal at perhaps the height of Smith’s play in 2014-15 rather than waiting it all out to see if he would level off (which he did, and then some). That’s just a confusing way to do business. In all fairness, I do think that No. 18 is a piece the Bruins could use moving forward, no doubt, but the Bruins could have saved themselves anywhere from $500,000 to maybe even a $1 million if they let this whole thing play out throughout the stretch run.
- Some sour news for the Bruins: Dougie Hamilton left this game early with an injury, and will not be ready for tonight’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, per DJ Bean of WEEI. With Hamilton out, the Black and Gold have sent out an emergency recall for Zach Trotman. The 24-year-old Trotman has four assists and 27 shots on goal in 17 games for Boston this season.
Up next
It’s a month of back-to-backs for the Bruins, and it’s on to Tampa Bay for a Sunday showing against the Lightning. This will be the B’s third of four head-to-heads with the Bolts, with Boston taking the previous two, but will be the first between the two played at Amalie Arena. That setting undoubtedly favors the Lightning, as they’ll take to the ice with a downright ridiculous 28-7-1 mark at home this year.
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