The Bruins long wait between games was one of several factors that led to the Bruins 2-0 defeat at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche last night. The loss at home was the first shutout loss in nearly two seasons and the first lost of the season for the 2-1-0 Bruins. After the game, Coach Claude Julien lamented on the Bruins lethargy. “There’s no doubt when you play, you get on a roll. There’s no doubt about that. We’ve been off for five days and it showed in that first period…we were a little rusty.” said Julien. “But those aren’t excuses, those are facts and you have to work on those things. You have to be ready. We knew they were a fast team, and they showed it again tonight.”
The Bruins next major factor in our loss was the extremely hot hands of the Avalanche’s Jean-Sebastien Giguere. “We got lots of chances from the second period on, but we ran into a hot goaltender. There wasn’t much missing; take that empty-net goal out, and it’s a 1-0 game. All we needed was a goal to get ourselves going and burst that bubble, but we couldn’t get it. So I don’t think you have to overreact after a game like this. I don’t think our guys gave a poor effort, but we know we can be better.”
“We could have done more.” said Bruins blueliner Torey Krug afterwards. “The goalie stopped us and all our good chances. We’ve got to do a better job of taking away his eyes.” Zdeno Chara wasn’t in his usual place as screen for the Bruins, and it allowed Giguere to stop all thirty nine shots on goal last night. “That’s something we did very well against Detroit and it’s something that we’re going to have to do better moving forward.”
Luck also factored against us. Several loud pings off the post frustrated a lot of fans (myself included). The fans at one point were so disinterested they saw more entertainment in a fan fight in Loge 19 then the Bruins on the ice. Finally, the refs did botch a few calls last night. Loui Eriksson tripped over his own skates (I was six feet away when it happened), and got assessed for an embellishment penalty. Milan Lucic got hit with a ten minute game misconduct after trying to have a go with Gabriel Landeskog. (I have to wonder if DoPS will give Lucic a call for go after one of the league’s pretty star players. It would be par for the course for the ‘experts’ at Public Safety.)
The Bruins play again on Saturday against the Columbus Blue Jackets in Ohio.
Oct 8, 2013; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Colorado Avalanche defenseman Andre Benoit (61) congratulates goaltender Semyon Varlamov (1) after a win over the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Centre. Colorado defeated Toronto 2-1. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports