Bruins 1/29/23 RECAP: Offense splutters in ugly 4-1 Loss

Jan 30, 2023 - 2:12 AM

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First Period:

Things didn’t start great, as Sebastian Aho blocked a David Pastrnak pass with his body that turned into a breakaway, where he roofed it easily on Linus Ullmark. 1-0 Canes.

And it just kept getting worse from there.

Second Period:

The Bruins could not get a thing going for most of the 2nd period, and paid for it promptly after a slew of missed opportunities of power plays with a Penalty Kill of their own, where Paul Statsny picked up the loose puck off a missed shot to make it 2-0 Canes.

Yuck.

Third Period:

Things got even worse as Seth Jarvis managed to pick Brandon Carlo’s pocket twice in one shift and then breakaway for another easy goal. 3-0 Canes.

It wasn’t all bad! Pavel Zacha took a Charlie McAvoy pass and wired it directly at Taylor Hall’s stick to put it past Andersen. 3-1 Bruins.

Buuuuuuut after pulling the goalie, a team struggling for anything couldn’t take the opportunity afforded to them by yet another power play...and paid for it.

Bruins lose 4-1, and leave Carolina with their tails between their legs.

Game Notes:

• Your TOI leader was Charlie McAvoy, who played 24:08 tonight.
• If there was an uglier game played this year by Boston, it was probably played in Florida. Absolutely nobody was in sync tonight, with maybe the exception of Pavel Zacha and Taylor Hall, who ended up making the only scoring play for the Black and gold, and even then they spent a lot of this game fighting it.
• The Bruins have had quite a road trip so far, and I think we’re learning the value of having guys like Jake DeBrusk in the lineup; the dynamism that he brings to games as a target for long passes against opponents that like to move around is sorely missed.
• I generally like Taylor Hall’s game, but I think his pass-first, make-a-play mentality is kind of wasted on the top line where everybody’s trying to make a play and be unselfish...Which doesn’t really work for either of them, unlike the third line where Hall can do most of the playmaking for Coyle and Smith. Regardless, I think a dynamic, scoring RW should be a priority signing for the deadline; losing two guys in your forward group really shouldn’t expose the number of guys keeping things in a holding pattern for the dudes who can put the puck in the back of the net.
• But hey, credit to the Canes, man; as much as I have a knot in my stomach thinking about being nice to them. They’re playing out of their mind right now and are the poster children for the kind of possession hockey that’s just infuriating to play against; all about explosive skating, locking down passing and shooting lanes without having to pull yourself entirely out of position with a huge hit, and making transition chances dangerous. No amount of “getting tougher” is gonna help the you get over that if they get skated into the dirt like the B’s did tonight.
• Bruins are a disgraceful 1-for-19 on the man advantage right now over the past few games, and a good part of why is that the chaos from Trying Shit just isn’t there when the team can’t read what the other skaters are doing very well. The Trying Shit method has worked when they’re healthy; It’s just unfortunate that losing one or two players that make Trying Shit a dangerous strategy for a few days has caused it to stall out this dramatically.
• If anybody deserves the lion’s share of criticism for this road trip, I think Carlo-Forbort is the real target; they’ve been getting hammered at all strengths in which they were asked to play and frankly I’m not surprised. We got on Carlo’s case at the end of last season for being safe to a fault and not interested in creating transition offense and boy does Derek Forbort not help that, who has been having an otherwise decent season. I think this experimental pairing can end for...well, ever if possible.
• Whatever, come out big on Wednesday and beat Toronto. You want a reset? That’s the game to do it against.

And Now, some blunt reminders to not jump off the Zakim Bridge:

• It took until the ass end of January for the Boston Bruins to go on a three game losing streak.
• This is the seventh time the Boston Bruins have lost a game in regulation all year.
• The Hurricanes are both good and on a heater. It happens.
• They are missing Jake DeBrusk
• In spite of this rough streak of difficult play, David Pastrnak finished the weekend with 2 points and is currently up to [checks abacus] 6 points on the road trip thus far.
• Toronto is in no danger of catching Boston.
• If they do see the Canes again in the playoffs, it will almost assuredly be after a long and arduous round at bare minimum.
• There’s still a trade deadline and plenty of very bad teams looking to offload good players to go.
• The sun will in fact crest the Blue Hills around 7 to 8 am and return it’s lifegiving rays to us. All glory to Ra.

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Bruins finish this gruesome road trip against Toronto before the All Star Break on Wednesday. That game drops the puck at 7:30pm.

We’ll see you there.