The Boston Bruins matched up with with New York Islanders last night, Monday, Jan. 18. Although they played much better than they did in their last game against the New Jersey Devils, they still struggled to score and ended up being shutout 1-0 by Semyon Varlamov and the rest of the Isles.
As I previously stated, the B’s played much better in this game, especially at 5-on-5. However, they still couldn’t find the back of the net. With Ondrej Kase out and now on injured reserve (IR) with an upper body injury, Coach Bruce Cassidy was forced to shuffle the lines — which seemed to be a good thing from the improved performances of several players.
With Kase out, rookie Jack Studnicka was back in the lineup. This game he was on the second line instead for the first. Additionally, Jake DeBrusk was moved up to the first line and Nick Ritchie was brought up to the second. Anders Bjork found himself back in the bottom-six on the third line. The only line that remained the same was the fourth with Trent Frederic, Sean Kuraly, and Chris Wagner.
With the lineup shaken up, Boston turned out their best overall performance of the season so far. Although they weren’t able to score, they created much more offensive chances than they had the previous two games and were able to sustain pressure in the offensive zone. Here are my three takeaways from the game.
3. Jeremy Lauzon was solid again for the Boston Bruins.
After a tough start to the season against the New Jersey Devils, defenseman Jeremy Lauzon has now put together two straight very good games.
In the first game of the season Lauzon started the game on the first defensive pairing with Charlie McAvoy. However, he wouldn’t remain their for the entire game as he would struggle.
Last game, Lauzon would once again start the game with McAvoy. But, unlike the first game, he would play a solid game and remain with McAvoy for the entirety of the matchup.
Last night, Lauzon once again played very well. Because of this he saw an increase in ice time and was actually second among the B’s defensemen in this category. Lauzon went from 18:05 in the second game against the Devils to 22:58 against the Islanders (this is also because Boston took two more penalties last night than in the previous game and Lauzon had four extra minutes of penalty kill time).
Lauzon finished the game with seven hits, two blocked shots, one giveaway, one shot on goal, and a -1 plus/minus (+/-).