Bruins’ Julien won’t bash Boychuk, so that’s up to rest of us
Boychuk/By S. Bradley
VANCOUVER — Back when Johnny Boychuk had only been on the ice for six straight goals against, Bruins head coach Claude Julien was asked about his defenseman’s play.
He declined to answer that day because it was the morning of Game 7 of the Tampa Bay Eastern Conference Final.
In the aftermath of last night’s 1-0 loss to Vancouver in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final, Boychuk has now been on the ice for seven straight goals against. But Julien still won’t bite when asked for a critique of the second-year blueliner.
“Let’s put it this way. At this time of the year, I’m not going to come in here and criticize my players,” said Julien today during the first of two days off before Saturday’s Game 2. “So I’m not going to answer that question as far as we’re going to deal with it internally. I think what we have to do here is regroup as a team and play better.
“Right now I’m not going to stand here and start answering questions about people criticizing individuals. I’m going to stay with the team concept. I think if you ask him, he knows he probably could have played that last goal a lot better. We all know that, but we all need to move on right now.”
In Boychuk’s defense, he bounced back from the Game 6 debacle against the Lightning — five goals against in one game — to skate very well in the Game 7 shutout win. Now we’ll see if he can recover enough to aid Boston’s cause in the second game against the Canucks.
At the least, he knows the coach has his back.
There’s no question it was a terrible play. As GR90 stated, he hesitated, got caught flat footed then flailed at the puck in desperation. When in doubt, rub him out Johnny. Especially at your own blueline in a 0-0 cup final game. The other meltdown was Chara cheating towards the shooter and giving away the pass, maybe he thought Boychuck was closer to Torres. I don’t know.
The bigger problem I have with the goal is that Boychuck was on the ice at all. The guy has been on the ice for the last 7 goals against, that’s no fluke. He plays with Kaberle so that they can shorten the bench in these situations. Anyone notice if he was late getting off or if the coach who changes the D was daydreaming? ? Love to know how that happened.
I thought Boychuk was the 3rd best D-man on Wednesday, he did lead the team with 8 hits. The worst D on Wednesday was McQuaid
For all that Rex brings to the locker room maybe it is time to leave him there.Dress Thorny for a bit more pounding on the Van D and move up Pev to 3rdand whoever on 2nd, some more speed up front were going to need it….
Turnovers are scarry in OT, but I don’t think you wanna pile’em up for overtime. ..
You are awarded one for every OTPeriod. If the TOs carryover to OT, than saving it just in case is going to be in Mr. Julien’s annual perf review, alongside a slew of things.
MCK. He was a force and taking the body. I had no problem with his game just his timing. He did the same thing after they scored to get within one against Tampa. Maybe I should have said one of our best physical players. My bad.
Nifty, Boychuck is one of our best players?
I don’t think you get a new timeout. Is he saving it for overtime? If that was his thinking then god help us.
Do the TO’s carryover to OT if you dont use them, or do you get another for OT?
If he’s going to put Johnny out there. How about a little instruction. You know. Hey John. We’re in overtime here. Don’t be stepping up if it’s in the last minute. I thought Boychuk was one of our best players. It’s his timing that could use some work.
A timeout would have been nice there, but the bottom line is Seidenberg and Chara should have been on the ice, not Boychuck. I don’t mind the play by Boychuck, he just got beat. Peverley was out of position for sure. Obviously they need to play better in game 2 and I think they will. They have before and they will.
Claude should have used that timeout. I don’t think that can be debated.
You know-I can get cutting Seguin’s ice time at times-but when you have a 5 on 3 that seems like the absolue best time to put somebody with a natural scoring ability on the ice.
I am the first to say Seguin can have some defensive lapses, but when it comes to skating, shooting and scoring Seguin shines. Julien’s problem is he won’t use him where he can shine.
I have no issues with Peverly and Campbell and Paille make a great PK pairing-no complaints on that either.
I think Seguin should be seeing PP time though (he really, really can’t make it worse) and I think if anyone needs his minutes shortened it is Recchi. Recchi is killing us and the Canucks are’t stupid-they are going to exploit Recchi ad exploit Boychuk-and if I were in their shoes I would identify both as weak links.
What digger said.
why does cj love pevelry again cause he shows grit…seguin is sitting again unless this kid scores his ice time goes by by.cj lets veteran players suck and looks the other way . cambpell paille peverly and kelly are all the same players. ones that usually wont hurt you but are’t game changers
PS… If not Seidenberg, anyone other than a D-Man that’s been on the ice for our last 7 goals against.
There was a lot of bad luck on that play, but a defenseman can’t make a close pinch call with that much time left in a close game. Having said that, we need Boychuck’s tenacity and physicality out there. As mentioned above he needs to keep the game in front of him as much as possible.
I also find Julien partially to blame but not for not calling a timeout. Anyone who knows the game would be appaled to see a coach call timeout in that situation (unless he could hide his motives after an icing). All calling a timeout would tell his team is that he feels they’re losing control (of a tie game) and the other team that they have us rattled.
What Julien’s mistake was, was not having Seidenberg out there in that situation.
If Boychuck focuses on keeping the game in front of him, he will have a long career. This guy is worthy of the Bruins line up for a long stretch of time imo. It’s like everyone else getting burned by stepping outside of their game.
If you’re lost, don’t know what to do… throw that jab and double it up right after….BUT DON’T BE LAZY AT ANYTHING YOU’RE DOING.
Honestly I think the biggest fault on Julien’s part in this whole run has been poor use of the time out. Its almost like he thinks they can roll over to the next game or something.
That last 5 minutes I kept saying-he really should take a time out and just let things settle. Julien doesn’t listen to me though.
Honestly other than that one huge mistake Boychuk’s game really didn’t suck that much. But lately it seems like the big mistakes have been on his watch. I think sometimes Boychuk is awesome when it comes to hits and hip checks, but he doesn’t always read the play that’s coming at him and respond to it quickly enough and I think he is prone to panic.
I also don’t understand why he didn’t have Seids and Chara out during that last minute. Shoot if I was coach for that game I would have called the time out and let my guys get a nice rest and had Chara and Seids together for that last minute.
Don’t let them get in your head!!STEP UP and get a goal !! Just play the BRUINS game we know and…in TIMMY we trust.
GO BRUINS GO!!! ALL OF EM.
There were a number of mistakes made on that play. Boychuck pinches, Peverly and Kelly go after Kessler leaving Chara to defend a two on one. Boychucks numbers speak for themselves but it was a lack of communication that caused that goal. Now is not the time to look for scapegoats and throw people under the bus. Now is the time to refocus, commit, and regroup.
Boychuck was too slow in deciding to take the puck or the body on Kesler, so he got neither. With that much time left, he shouldn’t have been pinching up and risking giving the open ice to the speedy Nucks. Poor decision making.
I still partially blame Julien for not calling a time-out with 3 minutes left when the B’s were all gassed and getting absolutely smoked in their own end. Would’ve done them some good to regain a little composure and energy so that they could execute more effectively.
Vancouver better not come out soft in Game 2… B’s will bring it. Hopefully Looch can get his head out of his bum, and Horton can remember how to handle the puck near the net.
Thank god for noticing this, though while some of his mistakes are forgivable last night and one particular mistake I remember from the Tampa series was him pinching at a bad time or trying to make a play at the defensive blue line.
That’s what caught him last night and it will catch him again if he keeps trying to make those plays, either he needs a serious crash course from Sedeinberg on how to pinch correctly or he needs to stop doing it and let the backchecker do the work in those area’s in our zone but against this Vancouver team I wouldn’t want to see him pinching in their zone at all he just doesn’t have that skill yet.