Boston Bruins: Getting Back On Track
Well, the Boston Bruins ended up giving away two points to Edmonton while collecting just one for themselves last night. The Bruins knew this game was about them falling back on old habits and not playing to their strengths. From the coach on down, the team knew they should have been able to goad former GM Peter Chiarelli’s new team into an easy drubbing.
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“We’ve got to play our game — I’m serious when I say that,” said Bruins bench boss Claude Julien following Thursday’s practice in Calgary. “We’ve got to play our game. I’m not adjusting to any team; I want teams to adjust to us. We’ve just got to play our game and respect what the other team has.
“When we play our game, it doesn’t matter what other teams do; we feel we’ve got all the bases covered. We’ve just got to play our game, and we didn’t last night.”
So what happened? The Bruins stopped playing their version of inspired desperation hockey. They chose to play the run around the rink version that Edmonton does. (The fact that they’re among the worst teams in the league should tell you how good their plan is.) Because of that, the Bruins missed opportunities on their end, gave the Oilers the chance to earn their first short-handed goal of the season, and fell in a shootout 3-2.
Frankly put, that shouldn’t have happened. The Boston Bruins should have went into Edmonton, sucked all the Oil out of Rexall Place and coasted on to Calgary with two points instead of one. The Bruins just couldn’t bring themselves to play the full sixty minute game.
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While the Bruins didn’t achieve all their objectives, it wasn’t a total loss. The B’s came back to get the game into regulation. The Bruins have gotten better at fighting their way out of trouble. They’ve also seen things drastically improve on the penalty kill(now at 76.7%). Still, a full sixty minute effort was lacking in Edmonton. Why, the Bruins weren’t playing to their system: defensive minded hockey.
“I don’t think we have too much trouble in our offensive game,” said David Krejci on the team’s performance. “We have to figure out how to go from defense to offense, and it seems like we’ve just been playing offense. In the past, every time, it worked for us when we played good defensively, then went from there. So we have to get back to that and don’t change a thing offensively.
“We have confidence up front, and we’re putting pucks in the net, so let’s keep that going. But it starts in our own D-zone.”
Now the Bruins will need to remember that lesson as they try to teach former Bruin Dougie Hamilton how to Dougie in his new home tomorrow night.