Boston Bruins
Departing From Defense-First Identity Leading To Disaster For Bruins
The Boston Bruins are well aware that they are a defense first team.
Every decision leading up to this season–hiring Marco Sturm as head coach, adding a heavy dose of “piss and vinegar” to their roster in free agency, and omitting young skaters who play with more grace than grit from the opening night lineup–they made in service of that identity.
On Thursday, the Bruins did not play their brand of hockey.
They weren’t tight in their own zone. They did not make smart decisions with the puck. Instead, they were loose, careless, outgunned, out matched, and ultimately out of their element as they tried and failed to keep up with the Vegas Golden Knights.
“We knew it was going to be tough here,” Sturm told reporters in Las Vegas. “It’s a veteran group, but again we just got to be smarter than that. We still have a lot of really good players in our lineup, but that’s not our standard. We just got to be way better. We got to buy in on our defensive effort. That was just not the case today.”
The 6-5 final painted a much kinder picture for Boston in the box score than what actually transpired on the ice at T-Mobile Arena.
Twice in the first period, the Bruins gave up the lead just moments after grabbing it. After quickly falling behind by two early in the second, they brought themselves back to within one with a David Pastrnak goal on the power play, and survived an extended 5-on-3 penalty kill situation thanks to the efforts of Jeremy Swayman in net, only to surrender a shorthanded goal in the final minutes of the frame.
The Bruins then gave up another yet another goal to start the third. And even though they nearly managed to come all the way from back from down three, the Bruins never deserved to.
“We had a lot of breakdowns that ended up in our net,” said Pastrnak. “Against a team like Vegas, that can’t happen. We had an amazing kill. Sway was standing on his head. We let him stand on his head the whole game. That can’t happen. We have to be better as a team. We showed some fight back, but that’s pretty much the only positive from the game.”
Armed with a roster featuring all-world players such like Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, Mark Stone, and Shea Theodore, along with underrated characters in Pavel Dorofeyev and William Karlsson, the Golden Knights are team that can win in whichever way it pleases.
The Bruins are not. They must stick to who they are.
Their loss on Monday to the Tampa Bay Lightning followed a similar script. Against a much more talented team, the Bruins allowed themselves to get sucked into a game they could not win.
At the very least, the Bruins are figuring this all out early.
“It’s a mindset,” Sturm said. “Do you want to play a 1-0, or do you want to play that open game? We’ve done it now, two, three games in a row. We got lucky once, because of our goaltending, but other than that, that’s not us.
“I don’t want to play that game. I’m a defensive mindset coach. It starts from there. The offense will come anyway, but you don’t have to cheat the game, that’s for sure.”
