Bruins notebook: Penalty kill slides in recent tests

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Bruins penalty kill has bailed them out of several rough patches this season.

Whether it’s been six-minute kills or being shorthanded at particularly inopportune times, the man-down unit has come through pretty much always.

The past few games, that hasn’t been the case, and there wasn’t anyone to bail them out.

Against the Capitals, the Bruins surrendered a power-play tally to T.J. Oshie — one of two times he reached the scoreboard — and they allowed two man-up goals against the Lightning in the third period that ultimately led to their fifth consecutive defeat.

If the offense was going throughout the lineup or the power play had come back to life, it might not be crippling, but since neither of those things have come around, the penalty kill’s woes have been more glaring.

“It’s a big test,” said defenseman Brandon Carlo. “There’s been some goals, some small breakdowns, nothing we can really fix, so I don’t think it’s been a negative thing so far. They’ve been some really good power plays we’ve been going against who have capitalized on their opportunities.”

It simply could be everything that could go wrong, has, and the puck luck has reversed after a stretch where the Bruins seemingly got away with everything — or it could simply be the opponents have gotten tougher.

“I think on the PK the other night, the last two games, they were very good groups,” said Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy. “Our guys are used to that, facing good groups, because we consider (our power play) a good group. It hasn’t been that way lately, but in general.”

On their three-game road trip the Bruins faced three of the league’s top seven power-play units. Before that, they faced three straight in the bottom half of the league. It makes sense, too; the better teams on the schedule, the better all their units are going to be, such as a power play, and challenge a Bruins penalty kill that’s been near the top of the league all season.

Entering Saturday night, they ranked 12th in the league at 82 percent, more than two points lower than when they were in eighth place just a week ago.

“We’ve tried to clean up the clears,” said Cassidy. “We made a small adjustment today, got burnt the other night … We have to make sure the structure part of it is right … The structure part we feel has been good most of the year. I’m confident in (assistant coaches) Joe (Sacco) and Kevin (Dean) to get that part of it done.”

Lineup changes

David Backes returned to the lineup in the spot of Brett Ritchie, but the Bruins moved the lines around all night.

Charlie Coyle moved up to play on the right side of the second line with David Krejci, while Chris Wagner, typically on the right side of the fourth line, moved to the middle with Sean Kuraly bumped up to the third line center spot between Anders Bjork and Danton Heinen.

Jaroslav Halak started in net after his loss in Washington on Wednesday night.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/36zBfkY