After the Bruins loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, Taylor Hall talked about their “playoff style” of hockey and what he expects from them during the series.
The Boston Bruins lost Game 1 of their first-round playoff series last season, bounced back with a Game 2 win and ultimately advanced to the conference semifinals.
They are hoping a similar path to success begins Wednesday night in Game 2 against the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena.
The Bruins played a pretty good road game for most of Monday night's series opener, but a couple deflection goals late in the second period helped the 'Canes take control of the matchup and cruise to a 5-1 victory.
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The Hurricanes are 4-0-0 with a 22-2 goal differential against the Bruins this season. What can the B's do to achieve better results?
Here's a preview of Bruins-Hurricanes Game 2.
Key storylines
Where's the offense?
The Bruins had little trouble outshooting (36-25) the Hurricanes and creating more scoring chances (29-28) in Game 1, they just couldn't finish any of these opportunities. Their only goal came on a Taylor Hall shot from the high slot that somehow found its way to the back of the net.
The Hurricanes fought hard through the slot to get traffic in front of B's goalie Linus Ullmark and make it difficult for him to see shots from the point. They scored twice this way in Game 1. The Bruins need to employ a similar strategy and get bodies in front of 'Canes netminder Antti Raanta. Raanta gave up plenty of juice rebounds Monday but the Bruins didn't have enough guys in front of the net to capitalize on them.
The other way to generate offense is scoring on the power play, which the Bruins have really struggled to do over the last month. They had an 0-for-39 drought in April and went 0-for-3 with the man advantage in Game 1. The Bruins could barely enter the zone cleanly against the Hurricanes' No. 1 ranked penalty kill. Carrying the puck into the zone or doing those cute drop passes won't work against an aggressive 'Canes PK and its blue line wall. Dumping the puck in and winning the puck battle below the goal line to set up the power play needs to be an adjustment made by Boston in Game 2.
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Switching up the D
The Bruins are mixing up their defense pairings a bit. Matt Grzelcyk will move up to the top pairing and play the left side next to Charlie McAvoy. Hampus Lindholm will go down and play the left side on the second pairing with Brandon Carlo.
The Grzelcyk-Carlo pairing had an awful Game 1 performance. Grzelcyk was on the ice for three goals and his poorly timed pinch in the third period led to a 2-on-1 scoring chance for the 'Canes, which they scored on to take a 3-1 lead.
Splitting the Lindholm-McAvoy pairing gives Boston's blue line a little more balance and someone on each of the top two pairings who can execute clean breakouts against Carolina's aggressive forecheck. Grzelcyk and McAvoy also have great chemistry as a pairing and ranked No. 1 in several shot and goals metrics during the regular season.
The one concern with this switch is Carlo and Lindholm didn't play well together during the regular season, but that was a pretty small sample size of just 20:25 at 5-on-5. How quickly they can develop chemistry on the fly will be worth watching Wednesday night and throughout the playoffs.
Projected Lineups
BOSTON BRUINS
Forwards
Brad Marchand--Patrice Bergeron--Jake DeBrusk
Taylor Hall--Erik Haula--David Pastrnak
Trent Frederic--Charlie Coyle--Craig Smith
Nick Foligno--Tomas Nosek--Curtis Lazar
Defensemen
Matt Grzelcyk--Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm--Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort--Connor Clifton
Goalie
Linus Ullmark
CAROLINA HURRICANES
Forwards
Andrei Svechnikov--Sebastian Aho--Seth Jarvis
Max Domi--Vincent Trocheck--Teuvo Teravainen
Nino Niederreiter--Jordan Staal--Jesper Fast
Jordan Martinook--Jesperi Kotkaniemi--Martin Necas
Defensemen
Jaccob Slavin--Tony DeAngelo
Brady Skjei--Brett Pesce
Brendan Smith--Ian Cole
Goalie
Antti Raanta
Odds
Moneyline
Hurricanes: -121
Bruins: +100
Over/Under Total Goals
Over 5.5: -121
Under 5.5: +100
All lines via PointsBet
Prediction
Bruins win 3-2