In a game played under severely different circumstances and in a vastly different manner, the Bruins fell to the Ottawa Senators 4-3 last night, dropping our record to 26-11-2.
The Positives
1. David Warsofsky scored his first NHL goal last night! You go baby Bruin, you go!
2. The boys played hard last night in their attempt to rally. It wasn't necessarily pretty but we saw some good intermittent offensive pressure and continually fought our way back until the very last minute of the game. It's that kind of drive you want to see every game out of your team no matter the score.
3. Our defense, all things considered, held their own. For the first game without Seidenberg and missing Chara, they did pretty well. They made some good plays and just overall held themselves together better than many people expected. I'm obviously cutting them some slack for this game but I do have faith they are going to find their rhythm.
4. As much as I don't like Jordan Caron, I have to give him credit for being willing to defend his teammate against a giant like Kassian. It's obvious Caron lost the fight but what counts is that he showed that the Bruins don't tolerate that kind of thing. Good for him.
2. The boys played hard last night in their attempt to rally. It wasn't necessarily pretty but we saw some good intermittent offensive pressure and continually fought our way back until the very last minute of the game. It's that kind of drive you want to see every game out of your team no matter the score.
3. Our defense, all things considered, held their own. For the first game without Seidenberg and missing Chara, they did pretty well. They made some good plays and just overall held themselves together better than many people expected. I'm obviously cutting them some slack for this game but I do have faith they are going to find their rhythm.
4. As much as I don't like Jordan Caron, I have to give him credit for being willing to defend his teammate against a giant like Kassian. It's obvious Caron lost the fight but what counts is that he showed that the Bruins don't tolerate that kind of thing. Good for him.
The Goals
1. Paille's Wrist Shot: During an offensive drive, Paille does a self pass around an Ottawa player along the left wing and breaks out in front of the oncoming d-man to score five hole on Anderson for his 4th of the season.
2. Iginla's Tip In: Iggy Iggy Iggy Hoy Hoy Hoy! Iginla passes up the left wing to Krejci who speeds through the neutral zone, backs the defense off the play and makes the pass across to Lucic from the point. Lucic then takes the shot, which bounces off of Iginla and into the net on Anderson's gloved side. This is Iginla's 12th goal of the season
3. David Warsofsky: This goal speaks for itself. It was his first of the season and of his NHL career.
2. Iginla's Tip In: Iggy Iggy Iggy Hoy Hoy Hoy! Iginla passes up the left wing to Krejci who speeds through the neutral zone, backs the defense off the play and makes the pass across to Lucic from the point. Lucic then takes the shot, which bounces off of Iginla and into the net on Anderson's gloved side. This is Iginla's 12th goal of the season
3. David Warsofsky: This goal speaks for itself. It was his first of the season and of his NHL career.
The Negatives
1. Chara and Seidenberg injuries. This is pretty self explanatory.
2. Our offense. I know I put them as a positive but they also shot themselves in the foot last night. We had good offensive pressure but did that annoying thing where we shoot into chests and pads, which resulted in a lack of goals off good opportunities. They also didn't provide a whole lot of support for Tuukka Rask while he was in net. They had this horrible habit of falling into their own goalie and causing additional traffic near the net, which caused mayhem in front and some momentum building.
3. The turnovers and struggle to clear the zone were a little bit too much for me last night. Most notably, that turnover on the blue line by Torey Krug that resulted in the GWG being scored by Ottawa's Bobby Ryan. That should not have happened and the result was extremely unfortunate. You can't make excuses for it, but again I will cut him a little slack with the whole "first game without Seidenberg" and the whole "missing Chara" thing. But just for now.
2. Our offense. I know I put them as a positive but they also shot themselves in the foot last night. We had good offensive pressure but did that annoying thing where we shoot into chests and pads, which resulted in a lack of goals off good opportunities. They also didn't provide a whole lot of support for Tuukka Rask while he was in net. They had this horrible habit of falling into their own goalie and causing additional traffic near the net, which caused mayhem in front and some momentum building.
3. The turnovers and struggle to clear the zone were a little bit too much for me last night. Most notably, that turnover on the blue line by Torey Krug that resulted in the GWG being scored by Ottawa's Bobby Ryan. That should not have happened and the result was extremely unfortunate. You can't make excuses for it, but again I will cut him a little slack with the whole "first game without Seidenberg" and the whole "missing Chara" thing. But just for now.
4. Tuukka Rask had another one of his off nights. Now, as I always say, you can't fully blame the goalie for the loss. I say this because, as I mentioned earlier, he didn't have a lot of help up front initially. But he still had a hand in the loss. He faced 12 shots and saved 9 of them by the time Claude Julien pulled him for the second time this month in the second period. It wasn't pretty and I'm sure there were some milk crates left cowering in fear.
5. Our power play was no good. We had four power play chances to score, the last of which we had a 6-4 and still couldn't score. That 6-4 was also very sloppy. The guys were winding up to shoot and then missing the puck, they would actually manage to shoot the puck and miss the net or in Iginla's case, would shoot the puck, break his stick, miss the net and have to hustle off to prevent a turnover on an empty net. For the others, we just couldn't get shots off. It all just looked sloppy and unorganized. Once again, I take this with a grain of salt because we lost Chara last night.
5. Our power play was no good. We had four power play chances to score, the last of which we had a 6-4 and still couldn't score. That 6-4 was also very sloppy. The guys were winding up to shoot and then missing the puck, they would actually manage to shoot the puck and miss the net or in Iginla's case, would shoot the puck, break his stick, miss the net and have to hustle off to prevent a turnover on an empty net. For the others, we just couldn't get shots off. It all just looked sloppy and unorganized. Once again, I take this with a grain of salt because we lost Chara last night.
The Bruins need to brush off this loss and do what we always do: find a way to fix the issues we had last night and move on. We have the added challenge of filling the hole left by Seidenberg but as I said in an earlier post, I have faith we can do it.
Until next time,
Keep Calm and Bergeron!
Until next time,
Keep Calm and Bergeron!