Boston Bruins News: Coach throws players under the bus, former coach fired, more

Trailing 3-0 to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday night through 40 minutes, it looked like the Boston Bruins were on their way to a frustrating road loss. That would have closed the gap for the wild card spots in the Eastern Conference to one point, with the Blue Jackets closing in on the Bruins.

Instead, a team that struggled at both ends of the ice found a way to outdo it all together and score three goals in the final 14 minutes, including the game-tying strike from Pavel Zacha with 11 seconds left. Boston went on to win in a shootout to secure the second point. After the game, head coach Rick Bowness didn't beat around the bush about his team following the game.

"I thought we got really selfish with the puck,'' said Bowness. "Some of these guys, they got a lot to learn about how to play in this league at this time of year..There's a lot there to be learned from some of these guys and they better damn well start listening."

Well, if that's not a way to lose a team, I don't know what is. Their result on Tuesday night against the Carolina Hurricanes will be telling.

Charlie McAvoy sees Bruins gaining confidence after Columbus comeback

Raise your hand if you saw the Bruins coming back against the Blue Jackets in the final 20 minutes. Not many did, but after they completed it and got the extra point, which is valuable this time of the year, defenseman Charlie McAvoy said what should serve as motivation for the rest of the regular season.

“I think it will absolutely help us without confidence,” McAvoy said. “For the stakes at the end of the year and moving forward, we have that in our head like, ‘Hey boys, we’ve done it before, we’ve been there before, we’ve done it.’ And we can have that real belief.”

It would greatly benefit the Black and Gold if they could simply play better in the first two periods to avoid needing to come back against the Blue Jackets on the road like that, but this is a win that they can look back on in a few weeks as a potential big one.

More Bruce Cassidy fallout in Vegas

After a shootout loss to the Washington Capitals on Saturday night, the Vegas Golden Knights fired head coach Bruce Cassidy. It came as a surprise with eight games left in the season. They are bringing in John Tortorella to finish out the season. Elliott Friedman, on his latest 32 Thoughts podcast, had an interesting take on the firing.

Freidman said that Cassidy's relationship with the team started to break down last year when they lost to the Edmonton Oilers in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He also mentioned there were some tough meetings between the players and Cassidy. There was some talk about whether they'd make a change last offseason, but GM Kelly McCrimmon backed Cassidy until Sunday. Sound familiar?