The Bruins were flat.
BOSTON — Bruins head coach Claude Julien called his team’s effort against Buffalo tonight “flat.”
And there’s no doubt the Bruins played like day-old opened soda in dropping a 4-2 decision to the Sabres at TD Garden.
Thomas Vanek broke a 2-2 tie 5:13 into the third period on an end-to-end rush after a Nathan Horton giveaway for what proved to be the game-winning goal. Vanek then added an assist on Jason Pominville’s insurance goal.
Here’s a glance at the box score:
•After my post about Tuukka Rask’s quality starts this afternoon, the goaltender failed to post one against Buffalo for the second time this season. He allowed four goals and stopped just 29 shots.
•Dennis Seidenberg and Gregory Campbell scored Boston’s goals.
•Ryan Miller stopped 38 Bruins shots to earn the victory.
•Defenseman Andrew Ference returned to the Boston line-up after a three-game absence with an upper-body injury. He skated 18:22 and fired one shot on net. Adam McQuaid was scratched. Before the game, Julien said the rookie had been playing “banged up” so he could use the rest.
The problem is clear, when the Bruins Defensive core was riddled with injuries Adam McQuaid stepped in nicely, he ads a lot of grit to the line up as a hard hitting, willing to fight anybody, stay at home defenseman. Notice when Mcquaid stepped in the bruins started play more consistant hockey. Instert Andrew Ferrance and remove McQuaid and last night happens. It’s time to cut ties with Ferrance and his injury prone body, he’s not that great a player any ways.
The B’s seem to have the same troubles against the same two teams this year, Buffalo being one and the Habs being the other. Both are small fast teams that unfortunately happen to be in the same division. What’s frustrating is that the Sabers are not that good of a team, yet they put together good efforts and look pretty decent agaisnt the black and gold. The Habs on the other hand I think are a lot better then people give them credit for, so far, but we’ll see how they deal with this recent rash of injuries.
IMO, the Bruins don’t match up well with either team, which has been proven time and again this season. It’s frustrating, but it is what it is.
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Overall, a terrible team effort after the first period. I’m usually a Tuukka supporter, but he really looked too complacent (as did everyone else). Expecting Nathan Horton to deliver is like playing scratch tickets… when the result is decent, it doesn’t seem like a bad deal, but in perspective its a waste of f***ing money. Dale Tallon didn’t build a championship team in Chicago by shipping out well-rounded NHLers… which explains why he slept easily after getting Horton out of Florida. Glad we got Campbell, at least.
We need to get Glyder out of there and get Caron back in.