Boston Bruins: Searching For Scoring
The Boston Bruins have gone 5-3-2 since the trade deadline. While the Bruins could be doing better, they’re still holding on to a guaranteed playoff spot at the moment. If the Bruins want to keep their fate in their own hands, they’ll need to put up two solid wins against the Rangers and the Panthers.
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The Bruins recent three game skid was certainly disappointing for the team and the fans. Still, the Bruins know what they did right and what they did wrong out West. Now, it’s up to them to learn from those losses and move forward in the final few games of the regular season.
“I’m not pleased with where we are because we’ve lost three in a row, but it’s not like we’re like, I guess, crumbling here,” Julien said. “We’ve just got to fix a few little things here, and give up little less as far as scoring chances if we want to be a little better. Also we need to bury the [chances] that we do have.
“I think the biggest thing from that road trip was our inability to bury the chances we had. When that happens, you need to credit the goaltender sometimes on the other side. I didn’t pay attention to it, but I’m sure [Frederik] Andersen got first star in Anaheim, and [Jonathan] Quick I’m sure was one of the stars there [in LA] as well. When you have goaltenders that are playing that well, it makes it hard to score.”
The Boston Bruins have found the goals sorely lacking as of late. To make matters worse, the Bruins have several players engaged in a pretty extended cold snap. Brett Connolly (one in his last 13 games) and Jimmy Hayes (one in his last 18 games) have been disappointing. With such limited secondary scoring, the Bruins decided to call up the hottest hand in the AHL, forward Frank Vatrano. The 22-year old might be what the Bruins need to power through their last nine games.
“We know he’s scored a lot over there [in the AHL], and he’s scored six with us here,” said Claude Julien of Vatrano. “Three were in one game. So he’s scored some goals here, but certainly not at the same level as he was at the American Hockey League. Our goal is to hopefully get him to do that here. A guy that comes out of college should have the ability to develop in a positive way versus giving him too much.
“Sometimes that can slow down the development of a player when things are over his head. So we sent him back there [to the AHL] to play at one point, he’s done a good job and now he’s up again . . . we’ll see what happens from here.”
Claude Julien knows that the Bruins haven’t locked in a playoff spot yet, and things could still go sour for them. Julien hopes that Vatrano can give the B’s what they’ve been missing.
“Some scoring…some secondary scoring. I think that’s been lacking to be honest with you,” Claude Julien said. “Our top two lines have been producing on a fairly regular basis, so we need some secondary scoring. If he gets in there with the way that he can score, hopefully he can give us some of that.”