Julien’s not going to speculate on Bruins’ problems drawing penalties
Julien
In the weeks since I first wrote about the Bruins’ inability to earn a sufficient amount of power plays, nothing has improved.
Boston still ranks just 28th in the league with 255 power-play opportunities. The Bruins have gone on the power play just once in each of their last two games. Last week against Chicago, they skated through an entire game without gaining a man-advantage
One would think that a team that relies so much on grit and work ethic would be able to attract more infractions against the opposition.
Head coach Claude Julien didn’t want to delve into the topic this afternoon after practice. When asked why his team doesn’t draw more penalties, Julien closed his media briefing with a veiled swipe at the officiating his team has had to contend with.
“That’s a good question. Do you watch the games? Do you think we should have more power plays? That’s my answer,” said Julien.
It’s because the Bruins don’t dive to draw penalties. We’ve seen Seguin go down easy at times, but other than him I can’t remember another Bruin doing it this season.
I agree Gibbz. On a couple of those penalty calls against the Bruins it looked like the Rangers’ players were channeling their inner Montreal Canadien. Seriously? Anyone with respectability on the New York side was probably trying to blend into the bench. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that some players don’t have the self-respect to try to brush off minor infractions and focus on the game, or the fact that some referees buy the act every time. The Bruins have their deficiencies, but continuing to skate rather than draw questionable penalties isn’t one of them in my book. Goal scoring isn’t their problem anyway (they have something like the fifth highest total in the league). If they can remember the correct way to play with leads, they’ll be fine.
The PP sucks-not sure why the Bruins would want a power play. Shoot there are times when our PK looks like it is 5 on 5 hockey-not that I want to spend a lot of time on the PK either.
I do think the refs are very inconsistent-not necessarily inconsistent in being anti Bruins and pro the other team, but just inconsistent as in too lazy to make the call or not watching the play.
The frustrating part is that the officiating is inconsistent… Watching last night’s game and seeing the the Rangers flopping around (Staal, Callahan) made me realize that I’m glad that the B’s aren’t embarrassing themselves by diving and trying to draw penalties. Last night, Krejci’s hooking penalty was a weak call, and the slashing penalty (knocking the stick out of Staal’s hands) was frustrating to watch given that the B’s were recent recipients of slashes that knocked sticks out of their hands – but the plays didn’t result in a penalty to the oposition. As a player, you don’t know what you can and can’t get away with… that’s the frustrating part. Simple answer: The B’s need to be more cautious and avoid that type of “stick parallel to the ice” play at all cost. Then, leave the calls up to the refs to maintain inconsistency! Regardless, in the long run you can’t blame the refs for blowing a three goal lead. Stay focused boys….
Here’s the deal. The object of the game is not to draw penalties and get powerplay time. The object of the game is to try and score on the other team, and that is how you draw penalties and that is how you get on the powerplay. All this talk of having trouble drawing penalties makes me a little uneasy. There are way more important things than how many powerplays we get in each game. If we worry about things like this, the sticks are going to be help tighter than ever before.
Will he speculate on how quickly he will be fired when they lose in the second round (hopefully second round)?
this team is more fun to watch on the pk than the pp.