The Boston Bruins were woefully bad in their loss to the Detroit Red Wings last Thursday. They topped that effort (if you wanna call it that) with a no-show in a 4-0 loss to the Washington Capitals two nights later. After the second loss, and after 120 minutes of play that’d make even the biggest Bruins fan scoff in disgust, the message from the club’s veterans was clear-- No more. The Bruins realized that they needed better, more complete 60-minute efforts to right the ship just three games in.
And they got just that in today’s Columbus Day matinee against the Colorado Avalanche, too.
Well, for 59 minutes and 59.5 seconds, anyway...
With the Avs taking it to the Boston defense in the waning moments of the third period, a fortuitous bounce put the puck on the blade of noted Bruin-killer Danny Briere, and he didn’t miss, connecting for his 300th career NHL goal, thrusting a dagger in the heart of the Black and Gold with half a second left.
“You look at that shift and how hard they worked down low, it was fantastic,… Colorado coach Patrick Roy said of the club’s game-winning finish to the afternoon affair. “Danny [Briere], and Nate [Mackinnon] and Alex [Tanguay], I mean they kept that puck in and you never know what can happen. Less that 10-15 seconds left when they start buzzing in their end and 0.5 seconds is sometimes all you need.…
The strike didn’t come without some understandable confusion for the 37-year-old Briere, either.
“I had no clue. I saw the referees, nobody knew what was going on and that’s when I had that sinking feeling that it might not be good,… Briere said of the last-second rush. “But it’s a big relief just to get a win under our belt. The pressure builds obviously when you don’t win and you don’t score goals, so to get a big victory here in Boston, never an easy building to play in either.…
It was the 41st game-winning goal of Briere’s career, and his 15th career marker against Boston.
“Hopefully there are many more to come but it’s certainly a good feeling to find a loose puck like that late in the game and get a big win especially after the start that we had,… Briere noted. “It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster to start the season but we are hoping this game will get us on our way.…
Not that it’s a consolation by any stretch (in fact it may make dropping the game even worse), but the Bruins were by no means run over by an Avs team that came to Boston without a goal in two games this year.
In search of their first Garden win against the Avalanche since 1998, the Bruins fell behind in the second period by way of a Jamie McGinn tally squeaking through backup netminder Niklas Svedberg, but answered back with a Loui Eriksson power-play goal just 4:22 later. That was just the B’s second power-play strike of the season, putting them at 2-for-12 through four games, and came with more excellent net-front play from Boston’s offensive MVP thus far, Carl Soderberg.
“That’s how you score goals right now in this league,… Eriksson said of the traffic in front. “He did a good job there he got the shot on, but he was able to stay with it and pass it and give me the puck. He did a great job.…
Soderberg, a free agent at the end of the year, has assisted on all but one Boston goal this year (Bergeron’s unassisted strike in the club’s 2-1 loss to the Red Wings), including two on the power play.
Today’s game also marked the return of alternate captain, David Krejci, who logged over 19 minutes of time on ice in his first game of the year, winning 8-of-16 faceoffs and finishing the night with a team-leading three hits while centering the top-line of Milan Lucic and Seth Griffith.
“Couple great scoring chances, I had one, Looch [Milan Lucic] had one and then at the end Zee [Zdeno Chara] had one when he was out there with our line,… Krejci said of his line’s performance on the night. “If only one goes in the net then it’s a different game. In this league when you get a scoring chance you have to make sure you’re gonna bury it and we didn’t do it today and it cost us the game.…
The game was also the first of Griffith’s career at the NHL level.
For the Bruins, the loss stings, and makes it three in a row. That’s longer than any losing streak last year, or the year before that, for that matter. In fact, this is the longest losing streak this Boston club has experienced since March 10 to 15 in 2012, when they dropped four in a row. (Marty Turco, Brian Rolston, blah blah.)
At a certain point, frustration sets in, and I think that’s where the Bruins have to be. Yes, it was a ‘fluke’ goal in terms of its time and what not, but it’s one that just shouldn’t happen. It’s that simple. It’s doubly frustrating for a guy like Matt Bartkowski, who finally made his season debut this afternoon after serving as a healthy scratch for the first three games, and was on the ice for the game-winning goal against.
“I just didn’t see the guy behind me so I got too high and they got a shot through and what happens, happens,… the 26-year-old said. “I mean you see what happens, I should’ve been lower there. You saw it.…
Along with Griffith and Bartkowski, Jordan Caron made his season debut in the loss.
It seems as if Julien’s made about a thousand changes to this roster through four games, and still, nothing seems to be clicking. (Exception: the Soderberg line, which is just killing it.) And you’re not going to overreact to a slow start, but in the blink of an eye it’ll be Nov., and your struggles become even more of an issue, as it’s simply tougher to make up ground. Even if it’s in the craptastic Atlantic Division.
Here's what we know-- the Bruins have just two even-strength goals through 240 minutes of hockey. That's a deviation and a half from the norm for a usual dominant 5-on-5 B's club. And just where do the Bruins go from here? Simon Gagne continues to hang around the team without a contract, and with just four goals in as many games, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the Bruins hammer out a deal sooner than later. But at 34 and with a year of rust on his blades, he’s not the savior, nor should you expect him to be. That’s where you’re at right now, though, as the Bruins’ inability to finish on the few chances they’re generating is beginning to look like a much bigger issue than most would like to admit.
Hello, Jerry: Iginla makes return to Boston
Veteran winger and future Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla spent just one season with the Boston Bruins. But damn, was it a successful one, as ‘Iggy’ became just the fourth player to score 30 goals in a year during Claude Julien’s near-decade long tenure as head coach of the Bruins. And though Iginla’s year in the Hub didn’t end with the Cup he had hoped for, there’s no doubt that the consummate professional enjoyed his time here, even if it was shorter than just about everybody anticipated.
“It was definitely a little bit different. I had one of the best [years] of my career, one of the most exciting years last year, one of favorite years, the whole experience coming to this,… Iginla said of Boston. “I made some good friends that are on their side playing with the team, and we had a very good team. So it was a little different, for sure. It hasn’t been too long, it feels almost like you’ve just been gone for a long vacation, but it’s part of the game. Coming from the other side, once the game starts, it’s business. We were looking for our first win, and we knew they were trying to get things going for themselves. But it’s a bit different on the ice. You wouldn’t want to play all the time against that team, but it’s a great place and it’s fun to come back.…
A victim of the summertime cap crunch, it wasn’t another bonus-loaded deal that made Iginla wary of a Boston return, but rather the long-term risks that’d potentially come back to hurt the Bruins.
“It wasn’t just the bonuses and the one-year thing, it was that it just tightens up. The cap ended up going down even more. It didn’t go up as much as they would have expected,… Iginla said of his exit. “Then the following year, the bigger risk that’s more than the financial, for myself, is having to move our kids in school after they’ve been here for two years and love it. They liked it after one. But I figure if we’re going to move, we want to move one more time for them. So that was more the risk than it was on the financial side."
The financial uncertainty made the move to Colorado on a three-year, $15+ million deal easier.
“I was hoping at the time, before free agency opened, that it could work out, but you know there are cap issues. With my family, we wanted to be able to make sure, I’m going to play more than one year, and I didn’t want to just play one year then next year [the Bruins] have even less cap room. With all the good, young guys they have coming up, they’ve got to keep room for them and keep signing them,… Iginla continued.
“It’s a good problem to have, though, if you’re the Bruins. But I understood why and figured if I was going to move my family, it would be the time now, before they keep getting more entrenched in school and liking it even more, and then trying to move the following year. I’ve got a great opportunity in Colorado. I’m excited to be here, and it’s a good, young, fun team. But like I said, before that with the Bruins, it was one of the best experiences of my career. I understand why, and like I said, their young guys played, [Torey] Krug, Dougie Hamilton, [Reilly] Smith, they played great. You’ve got to have room for them, Looch, the list goes on.…
A long-term future in Boston was impossible given the club’s youth movement, but whether or not the 37-year-old can win a Cup with the Avs’ group of young guns within the next three years remains to be seen.
Up next
The Bruins will head back to the Joe for another meeting with the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday night. The Wings absolutely schooled the Bruins the last time around, dominating the Black and Gold in the puck-possession game (something the Bruins are rarely on the wrong side of), and held the B’s to just 17 shots. Given their three-game slide, you can expect the Bruins to be in, uh, not-so-pleasant spirits.