Bruins’ middle six a mixed bag

The Bruins’ middle two lines have not played much hockey together and were the biggest concerns of the team going into the playoffs.

Well, there was good news and bad news.

The good news is that the second line of Jake DeBrusk, David Krejci and Ondrej Kase played up to its slotting and, had DeBrusk been able to finish on any of his handful of chances, the B’s may have won Game 1 against Carolina handily.

The bad news is that the third line of Nick Ritchie, Charlie Coyle and Anders Bjork was shaky at times. It did produce a goal, Coyle’s disputed second period tally that gave the B’s their first lead since arriving in Toronto. But they also were on the ice for two Carolina goals. On the first one, Ritchie first lost a puck battle that allowed the Canes to enter the zone and then there appeared to be a miscommunication between Coyle and Ritchie that let defenseman Joel Edmundson to float free in the middle of the ice and blast a shot from the high slot past Tuukka Rask.

Then, with the B’s leading 3-2 in the third period and the line in the midst of a change, Ritchie lost another battle that allowed a Carolina attack to continue until defenseman Haydn Fleury wristed a shot toward the net that Rask appeared to lose sight of.

The goal the third line did score was ugly, which is the type of goal you want to see from the unit. Ritchie reached up and batted a puck that goalie Petr Mrazek tried to glove, Bjork popped it free and Coyle buried the puck into an empty net. Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour challenged for a hand pass but was denied when it was ruled Mrazek’s playing of the puck washed out the hand pass.

But the defensive zone is an issue for the third line.

“It’s going to come as we play more and more,” said Coyle. “It’s just that talk is so huge … there’s some stuff we’ve got to work on and work out. We’ll definitely watch some video of of today’s game, that’s a crucial area we want to be better at.”

On the other hand, the Krejci line looked like it had been playing together forever. Kase had missed the entire training camp and the first week of play in Toronto but he was dogged on the puck all day. Coach Bruce Cassidy called his game “fantastic.” Krejci gave the B’s a 3-2 lead early in the third period when, after Kase was robbed by a Mrazek mask save, the right wing put the puck on net from a prone position. Krejci grabbed the rebound and slipped it past the goalie.

Cassidy reckoned that the performance was about as good as he could hope for from the line. The trio landed 13 of the B’s 40 shots on net, which does not include the post that DeBrusk hit or the point blank opportunity he sailed over a wide open net.

“If they can do that every night, we’re going to be a very dangerous hockey club. Some nights, I think the puck follows. You work for it and you get it back. Other nights you work your butt off and it doesn’t seem to bounce your way,” said Cassidy.

“I’m not going to lie, I’d love to replicate that every night with those guys. Kase took a few hits and bounced back. Really what I liked was the second effort on the pucks. That makes any team hard to play against. That’s what happened with the line (today).”

Rask or Halak?

Cassidy has a decision to make on his goalie for Thursday’s Game 2. He had planned to let Rask (25 saves) run with it until Games 5 and 6, which are scheduled for consecutive nights, but the postponement of Tuesday’s game condensed the schedule on the front end, too. We could see Jaroslav Halak on Thursday.

“The one thing about today’s game, there wasn’t a lot of taxing stretches in our own end where goalies will fatigue and dehydrate. Penalty kill was pretty solid in that regard. We didn’t get stuck a lot in our end. That is a big factor on the recovery of Tuukka,” said Cassidy. “Don’t forget, a lot of the back-to-back games, you’re traveling. You’re getting a poor nights sleep and an early morning. Those won’t be the case in this particular back-to-back. Everyone should sleep well tonight, get some rest. So there is that consideration too. So you have two things that can tilt towards Tuukka getting a back-to-back start. I’m not saying that is going to happen, because the conversation needs to be had with him and (goalie coach Bob Essensa). And if we feel Jaro gives us the best chance to win, we’ll certainly go that route. (Rask’s) game tonight was fine. I thought the first goal was a bomb that just squeaked through, we had a breakdown. The last one is obviously one when you have a lead. But obviously something happened there, a flash screen, because he’s going to stop that one. There is a bit of a breakdown where we didn’t get the block. At the end of the day, there wasn’t a whole lot of grade A’s. Certainly, Mrazek was the busier guy with high-end stops. But that doesn’t mean Tuukka didn’t play well.”

McAvoy on point

Charlie McAvoy played like the No. 1 defenseman he was drafted to be. He logged a career and game-high 33:45 in icetime, pushed the pace of the play, put five shots on net and appeared to save a possible OT game-winner.

‘Canes coach fined $25G

Brind’Amour most definitely did not agree with the denial of his challenge of Coyle’s goal, and said exactly how he felt. He believed it either had to be a hand pass from Ritchie or goalie interference on Bjork to dig it out of his glove.

“There’s no way that’s a goal in any league. We have a million people doing this and they can’t get it right. That’s the problem with this league,” said Brind’Amour, who later dropped an F-bomb in his diatribe.

He was subsequently hit with a $25,000 fine for his comments.

The Canes were hit with a two-minute minor on the failed challenge, but tied the game almost immediately on Brock McGinn‘s shorthanded breakaway goal.

Power outage

The B’s problems on the power-play continued as they went 0-for-4…

The Hurricanes had been off for a week after sweeping the Rangers, so it was a bit of a surprise when the the team announced just prior to game-time that forward Justin Williams and defenseman Sami Vatanen, two pretty important pieces to their puzzle, were “unfit to play.” Being in the bubble with practice essentially closed to reporters, the ‘Canes were able to keep whatever the issues are with those two players under wraps until shortly before puck drop.

Brind’Amour said both players could be available for Thursday’s Game 2.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2XXUOkW