Let’s just be frank here. For many Boston Bruins fans, this was the worst game they’ve ever seen the Black and Gold play. It was almost like watching one of those Mighty Ducks movies where the hero team gets obliterated by the bad guys halfway through the film. By the middle of the second period, it stopped being painful and started getting clinical. How many more errors would occur, how many more breakdowns, how many chances would be missed or given up.
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We can quote all the players here, but they all used the same word tonight. Embarrassed. For a few of these players, it was their worst game in their NHL career. For a couple, it could have been their worst game since juniors or even squirts. Bruins captain Zdeno Chara summed up the mood of the team after the game.
“I feel like we got absolutely embarrassed,” said Chara. Chara was a -1 with an assist, a shot, and a hit tonight. “Obviously they played a really good game, but we had nowhere near the game that we needed to play and it was embarrassing.
“There’s obviously things that are going to stay inside this locker room, but basically, we need to be better. We need to perform better. We’ve had a few stretches that we played well ; we won some tight games and big games, and then we were facing some challenges, or some teams that are on top of the league, and we didn’t follow up with the performances that we had previous games. That’s, again, tonight’s case. So yeah, it was embarrassing.”
The Boston Bruins defense was so porous, they allowed 57 shots on goal tonight. That hasn’t happened to the B’s since 1965. The Bruins normally solid penalty kill gave up three power play goals tonight. Both Tuukka Rask and Jonas Gustavsson had sub .850 performances as well.
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The shellacking at the Winter Classic was bad. Compared to that this loss though, the Bruins and their fans won’t forget this ‘Royal Treatment’ for the remainder of the season.
This was the worst game the Bruins have had this season. It’s entirely possible this was the worst beating the Bruins have received in the Claude Julien era. This is the kind of game that gets players thrown on waivers. If it wasn’t for the Bruins being critically short of defensemen right now, Kevan Miller would likely have been put on the waiver wire for such an ugly performance.
The only bright spot of the evening was Brad Marchand‘s 25th goal of the season. This is his third career 25-goal season, and he is within three goals of his personal best.
Now the Bruins have to put this behind them and head out on the road. The Bruins needed to get themselves motivated, and being humiliated at home is probably the best motivation they can get. The only thing they can do is take this defeat and do whatever they can to use it to help propel them moving forward.
“I think if anything, it should create some anger and some determination to want to redeem yourself for an embarrassing loss,” said an equally embarrassed Claude Julien postgame. “So I’m not concerned about the confidence of the guys. It does happen during the course of a season. You don’t like to see it, especially when it’s at home, but we’ll go on the road here for these next six games and hopefully understand the importance of each and every one of those games that we’re going to be playing.”