Before Wednesday’s game, the Boston Bruins had been playing great. That all changed when the B’s played the Calgary Flames. The B’s just fell apart.
Well, that was a rough game to watch. The Boston Bruins 4 game winning streak came to an end on Wednesday night as the Calgary Flames defeated the Boston Bruins 5-2.
The Bruins had been playing so well. They were scoring in bunches and the goaltending was phenomenal.
Wednesday was the complete opposite. The Bruins looked like a completely different team. They struggled all over the ice.
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Just like there are good, team wins, there are also bad, team losses. There weren’t a lot of bright spots for the Bruins on Wednesday night.
The Calgary Flames dominated the Bruins. They deserved to win the game. The Flames passing was unreal and goaltender Mike Smith was phenomenal.
You may have noticed that Smith is rather adventurous. He will gladly skate out of the crease and get to the puck. This was a killer for the Bruins.
When they dumped the puck into the Flames zone, Smith killed any of their possible options. Smith was probably the Flames best player on Wednesday night.
Something that kept Bruins fans awake was the chippiness. There were plenty of dustups especially after some hits by Ryan Donato and Charlie McAvoy. McAvoy laid out Johnny Gaudreau and brought the Comm Ave Classic to the NHL ice.
So here are 3 takeaways from the awful performance on Wednesday night.
1. Rough start for Tuukka Rask
After getting back on track, Tuukka Rask had a stereotypical night on Wednesday. Overall it was an okay game for Rask, but it was truly a tale of two games on Wednesday night.
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Let’s start with the beginning of the game. Rask was awful. He was back to his poor goaltending ways.
The 2nd goal of the game could have easily been prevented, but Rask gave up a juicy rebound and “Johnny Hockey” was able to put it home.
The 3rd goal that Rask allowed was just plain awful. I respect that Rask is an infinitely better goaltender than yours truly, but anyone and I mean anyone could’ve stopped that puck. It was harder to allow a goal than just making a save.
I was honestly surprised Bruce Cassidy didn’t pull Rask.
After that Rask performed much better. He made some truly amazing saves and kept the Bruins in the game. Rask stopped breakaways and controlled the puck.
Rask needs to stop having these bad starts. They dig a hole that the Bruins can’t get out of most of the time. With the success of Jaroslav Halak, Rask needs to play better or he may spend some time on the bench.
2. Sloppy play
The Bruins play can be described with just one word, sloppy. No matter where the Bruins were on the ice they were sloppy.
In the Bruins zone, defenders made way too many mistakes. There was a boatload of poor passes and dumb plays.
In the Flames zone, the Bruins just couldn’t get anything going. They struggled to spend lots of time in Calgary’s zone and couldn’t produce a ton of goal scoring opportunities.
Like Rask, the Bruins as a team got better as the game progressed. That’s why we saw the Bruins score two goals in the 2nd period.
The Bruins also committed a boatload of penalties. They didn’t have a major impact on the game, but it takes a toll having to kill penalties.
If you play as sloppy as the Bruins did on Wednesday night you aren’t going to win. Hopefully, Boston learned their lesson and will come back with a better effort against the Oilers.
3. No need to worry about Brad Marchand
A lot has been made about Brad Marchand’s unusual start to the season. You have media members saying that Marchand needs to shoot more and that the Bruins should be worried about his play.
Well, I think Marchand is doing just fine.
Marchy scored a beautiful goal on Wednesday night with a little help from Patrice Bergeron. Bergy rifled a pass across the ice and Marchand wristed one past Smith. Marchand has racked up 2 goals and 9 assists in just 6 games.
I like the unselfish Marchand and I don’t think it is that big of a deal. Clearly, he is still able to score goals. What’s the issue with him wanting to get more guys involved?
So the Bruins are now 4-2 on the year and are only 4 points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs for 1st place in the division. I know it may seem too early to care about the standings, but I think it’s important that the Bruins stay close to Toronto.
The Bruins are back in action for the 2nd game of their Western Canadian road trip as they play the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night. Hopefully, the Bruins will be able to walk away with the win.