The Bad
- The Bruins struggles 5-on-5 this season continued Thursday night. Going into the game, they had scored 21 even-strength goals, while giving up the same amount. They gave up even-strength goals to Kyle Palmieri and Pavel Zacha in the second period to fell to a minus-2 goal differential even-strength. Not even the newly constructed lines helped this night.
- The Bruins just can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to injuries in 2021. Already down two defensemen, the injury list got longer against New Jersey when David Krejci left the game after just 6 minutes and 31 seconds of ice time and seven shifts with a lower-body injury.
- John Moore is in the lineup because of injuries to Matt Grzelcyk and Jakub Zboril on the blue line, but it was another ineffective night for the Bruins defensemen. He had a giveaway on the Devils’ third goal, which ended being the game-winner by Zacha and his play has been spotty at best. My colleague Matt Hawkins recently wrote about Urho Vaakanainen getting a shot on defense and it might be time. If you have him on the taxi squad, what good is it when he could be playing with the Providence Bruins? Time to give the youngster his shot.
- Over the last two games, the Bruins have had trouble clearing pucks out of their end and their transition game coming out of their zone leaves a lot of being desired. In the first period, the Devils’ had nearly two minutes of zone time and had the Bruins running around their end, creating scoring opportunities. Brandon Carlo was on the ice during the whole sequence. For as well as they played earlier in the season, the blue line is having their troubles recently.
The Bruins will head to Lake Tahoe for their NHL Outdoor Weekend game against the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday at 2 p.m. losers of two straight. With four games on the road, they don’t return to the TD Garden until March 3 against the Wahington Capitals.