Chara/By S. Bradley
WILMINGTON, Mass. — Lost in the all the hoopla this morning over Zdeno Chara’s hit on Max Pacioretty last night in Montreal has been the horrible effort the Bruins put in during their 4-1 loss.
People keep telling me they played a strong first period by outchancing (not sure who tracks “chances”) the Canadiens. All I saw was a team that looked deflated through the rest of the first period after Johnny Boychuk got pummeled by Ryan White, and then used the second and third periods to get in some light skating.
Plus, Tuukka Rask looked like he reverted to his October/November form when faced with an offense that didn’t belong to league bottom-feeders Edmonton and Ottawa. He definitely didn’t look like a goaltender the Bruins could trust if forced into action in the playoffs.
So that head coach Claude Julien decided to make his charges show up at Ristuccia Arena and get in some practice makes solid sense. And there are a number of things this team can work on:
•Figure out how to get the puck to go in the net when up a man or convince the league to award power-play goals based on the prettiness of the passing. The Bruins should’ve learned quicker that just putting the puck on Tomas Kaberle’s stick wasn’t going to make goals magically appear on the scoreboard.
•Find out if Chris Kelly ever made it to Boston after his visa troubles. With the exception of one play he made on Steven Kampfer’s goal last week and a few faceoffs, I have yet to witness a player that was worth trading anything for, let alone a first-round pick.
•Examine whether there’s a reason only one line scores per night. Balanced scoring, I’m pretty sure, is supposed to mean multiple guys on multiple lines scoring every night. Even during the latter stages of the winning streak, it seemed like one line was scoring every night.
•Figure out when the next time Boston’s fourth line of Shawn Thornton, Gregory Campbell and Tyler Seguin/Daniel Paille is going to start pinning teams into their own end again and/or make some significant body contact in any of the three zones to build the momentum they’re supposed to create when on the ice for their brief stints.
There’s plenty more to work on, but this list is a start.
You want to get the PP going – how about letting Seguin work with the second PP unit? The kid is one of the few members of this team with legit sniper potential and he is wasting away on the pots and pans for hands line
How about working on self control. How about sitting Chara out and have him follow a course on anger management. The Bruins will have to show better control over their emotion if they are to be considered a legitimate contender for the Stanley Cup. Lack of self control is certainly the Bruins main weakness, it has been for a number of years, and yesterdays events show no sign of improvement. All my family is in shock, last night was a nightmare, nobody slept in the house. I think it goes beyond a pointless suspension. Chara desserves to be banned from the game end of story.
Kaberle has not exactly lit the world on fire either.
The fact is the Bruins were a little overrated for beating Ottawa twice, NYI and Edmonton. Yeah, they beat TB and Vancouver in there, but over half of that win streak came at the hands of the worst teams in the NHL. The Bruins apparently believe that they can coast through games and win them. That works against Ottawa. It doesn’t work against Pitt or MTL
It was as if Julian had them so worked up about being “smart” and worried about the ability of Montreal to draw penalties at home, that they just went out and had no emotion. Everything about that game was embarrassing to watch as a Bruins fan.
And yes, Kelly needs to be put on the fourth line or sat down.
A second-round pick was far too much for Kelly.
Montreal played better last night. The B’s struggle with this team. Montreal looked faster, sharper, more relentless. Is it a match-up problem? Or are we not to read too much into it?
To be fair, the Kelly trade was a second-round pick. But yes, he has been practically invisible.