The Boston Bruins have split the first two games of their current road trip. If the Bruins want to a avoid a ‘three-peat’ of missing the playoffs, they’ll need to steal these next two games by any means necessary.
The Boston Bruins are currently 1-1 in their west coast road trip, beating the San Jose Sharks but falling to the Anaheim Ducks. That loss disrupted the Bruins four game win streak and prevented them from clawing their way back into an Atlantic Division playoff spot.
The Bruins know what is on the line. Every loss brings them closer to a third straight year without a postseason appearance. The Black and Gold know that they’ve got to quickly put this loss in the rear view mirror and head over to Los Angeles to take on the Kings.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a setback,” said Bruins forward Frank Vatrano about the team’s loss to the Ducks on Wednesday. “Obviously, it’s a little frustrating for the guys in the room. I think we’ve played a solid game and obviously there were a couple of breakdowns, a couple of bounces that didn’t go our way, so we’ve just got to flip the page.”
More from Bruins News
- Bruins release Prospects Challenge roster, schedule Tuesday
- Bruins bringing back familiar forward on tryout contract
- The Bruins should take a look at these four free agents
- NHL Network lists Ullmark as sixth-best goalie in the league
- The Lasting Legacy of David Krejci
Boston Bruins bench boss Bruce Cassidy has done an excellent job since taking over on February 7. He’s helped the team go 4-1, and he’s brought some of his training tools over from Providence to help out the NHL club.
One of Cassidy’s new approaches is to run a postmortem on every game the Bruins play. He highlights the good, the bad, and the occasionally exceptional. He uses each game as a teaching tool to help the Bruins achieve consistency, something that was lacking under Claude Julien earlier in the season.
“I generally do some sort of autopsy from the night before,” offered Cassidy on his new system. “We did it when we won games, some things we had to correct – for example, the San Jose game, I thought there were some things – and we did it a little bit this morning. Not too long, and we moved on to our special teams meetings, which is our ritual the morning of, and got ready for LA.”
The Los Angeles Kings are in rough shape. They’ve only won one in their last four games. That one win came by beating the NHL’s current doormat, the Colorado Avalanche. If the Bruins can keep the pressure on Peter Budaj, then the B’s will find themselves back on the right track quickly.
The Bruins will take on the Kings on Thursday night, and head over to Dallas to take on Tyler Seguin and the Stars Sunday afternoon. The B’s will need these four points as they try to claw their way back into an Atlantic Division conference position.
Next: Austin Czarnik, Joe Morrow Sent Back Down To Providence
The Bruins are currently in all too-familiar territory at the moment. The B’s are currently tied with two other teams with 66 points. While that should be good enough to get them a playoff spot, they’re on the outside looking in due to the amount of games played.