BOSTON – It’s been a disappointing stretch for the Bruins headed into the bye week as recent losses to the Rangers, Flyers and Canadiens showed the B’s that they still have work to do when it comes to facing teams below them in the standings.
The mid-week loss to the Flyers in Philly was disappointing in that it didn’t feel like the Bruins fully showed up for the game, and that was again the case in a 3-2 loss to the Blueshirts on Saturday night at TD Garden.
It looked like a Bruins team that was worried about their vacation plans getting ruined by the snowstorm, and a Rangers team that decided to worry about that after last night's two points were in the bank.
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The Bruins are pretty much fully healthy at this point and have even been buoyed by a strong first few games from rookie Peter Cehlarik, but their goaltending, their power play and their top line have been erratic after carrying them for the first half of the season.
Bruce Cassidy said it will all be a point of emphasis when the Bruins get back more than a week from now from a combination of their bye week and NHL All-Star weekend. Another point of emphasis: Keeping focused on the shift after the Bruins score, which has given way to opponent goals over the last few weeks.
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The shift-to-shift focus has perhaps been lacking in recent weeks, and maybe a byproduct of the dog days of the season in January. The hope is that the bye week will take care of that malaise that even the B’s best players seemed to be suffering from when a Patrice Bergeron face-off loss in the defensive zone led to a very quick Rangers go-ahead goal in the second period.
“You have to be a self-motivator to be a successful player in this league. It can’t be up to the coach every night to rev you up. We give them information, we prepare them the day before, we do some stuff in the morning, but when that puck drops it’s the individuals job to be ready to play, energy-wise and focused on the task at hand,” said Bruce Cassidy. “We had a faceoff goal that the lining was wrong, and they scored on it, second goal. We were just not in the right spots, and part of that’s on our staff and part of that’s on our players to get it right.
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“We get there late, and it’s in the net. So, some of those things crept into the game tonight. I was asked this morning would our focus be on – maybe it was on the break, but I don’t want to use that as a crutch because it’s happened to us how many games now - four, five, six where we’ve kind of let off the gas, got comfortable, maybe thought it was going to be an easy shift the next one and wanted to extend the lead but not playing the right way. There are a lot of those things that go into it. Yeah, we’ll address it, but you’re not a teacher to the student that listens, right? That’s kind of part of it. We have to buy in.”
So the Bruins will go into the bye week with a hold on third place in the Atlantic Division just a tick over the Montreal Canadiens, , and firmly in a playoff spot after battling through injuries and adversity in the first half of the season. But now it seems that leaving those tough times behind has allowed some comfort to creep into Boston’s game, and it showed with some disappointing defeats right ahead of the break.
It will be up to the Bruins to self-correct when they get going again more than a week from now as rested and recharged as they’ve been since the beginning of October. But these last few games are also a signal that the Bruins better get focused when they come back from their assorted vacations because the next few months are going to be a battle to protect their slim playoff cushion over Montreal, Pittsburgh and Buffalo.
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