Bruins Notebook: Cassidy goes to work on power play

Fifteen minutes before the regularly scheduled morning skate on Saturday at Warrior Ice Arena, Bruins’ coach Bruce Cassidy and his staff were on the ice with the participants of both power-play units to try and iron out some details.

You would have expected nothing less after the the B’s man-advantage, a strength for years here, had a gravely subpar performance in their winnable 3-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday. The B’s not only went 0-for-5 with two failed 5-on-3s (one for 20 seconds, the other for 1:01), they managed just one shot on net in all that man-up time.

While he made some tweaks at the end of the loss in Carolina, Cassidy had the same top unit he started that game, with Charlie McAvoy up top, Taylor Hall at net-front along with the David Pastrnak, Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand.

After the skate, Cassidy detailed what he saw as the main problems.

“I think it’s the pace of our execution, in-zone specifically. We’re slow and predictable at times,” said Cassidy. “In the past, I think we moved it quicker and we knew where our support was, we recovered pucks and broke a team down. A good example of this is the other night, it went from Pasta to McAvoy to March, to Bergy in the bumper and then a shot. … We chased down a rebound and won a race, poke a puck and all of a sudden, Marchie hit Hall at the back post. It just doesn’t go in. But that’s how we’ve always operated. Quick puck movement, generate a play to the net. One of our options — from game to game, we don’t know which one it will be, sometimes it depends on the killers — we recover a puck and then all of a sudden the (opposition) is broken down. Now our skill takes over.

“We just didn’t finish. That was a focus on what we did this morning, on what we did well. We also showed a few clips where we were predictable and not working hard in position to support pucks. That was in the in-zone part of it.

“The entries, all in all, have been good. The other night we threw one behind the D, an indirect that we maybe could have taken to the net. … We had some kick-out entries where we changed sides. I think our entries for the most part have been fine, it’s once we get in and then the pressure comes from an entry where we assume we’re set, we’ve been casual. … We call it possession before position. You’ve got to have good possession of the puck and not worry about who’s in the bumper or who’s here. You make sure you have good possession before you worry about getting to your spots. You can work that out later.”

Cassidy pointed out that most kills focus on taking away Bergeron’s quick snap shot from the bumper, which means something else should open up.

“We’ve seen a lot of that. So OK, they’re shrinking into the bumper. What’s available on the outside? Is it the elbow to Pasta? Is it a down low play? And that’s where we’ve got to be clean with it,” said Cassidy.

And just in a general offensive sense, Cassidy said more of a shot mentality should help when a team is in a funk.

Are you going to shoot from everywhere? No. But let’s think that, if nothing else is working for you, let’s make sure that that’s at the top of the list,” said Cassidy.

Smith returns to lineup

The return of Craig Smith, who never turned down a shooting chance, should help in re-instituting that shot mentality.

After missing the previous three games, Smith was back in the lineup for Saturday’s return tilt against the Florida Panthers.

Cassidy also planned to start the game with the second line that he envisioned in training camp, with Charlie Coyle centering Hall and Smith. Coyle had been on the right wing.

“Smitty can really shoot it,” said Cassidy. “He’s a volume shooter, which is, right now, when the pucks not going in, a mentality that helps to generate some offense.”

With the return of Smith, Jack Studnicka came out of the lineup…

Cassidy continued to tinker with his defense pairings. Connor Clifton was back in and Jakub Zboril was out. Mike Reilly was dropped down to the third pair with Clifton while Matt Grzelcyk skated with Brandon Carlo, and Derek Forbort went back with McAvoy.

“We thought Reilly and Carlo after five or six games were very average, so I think Griz and Carlo have been a good pair in the past, so how does that look? And that would drop Reilly down with Clifton. They’ve played together a little but last year when (Reilly) first got here, and we liked it. It’s still a work in progress, but hopefully not forever,” said Cassidy.

Ullmark gets the nod

Linus Ullmark was back in net against the Panthers.

“It’s competition,” said Cassidy of Ullmark’s battle with Jeremy Swayman, who took the loss in Carolina. “If we see one of them gets hot, we’re going to roll with them. But we’re not there yet where one guy is truly ahead of the other.” …

Oskar Steen was returned to Providence.

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