Bruins Notebook: Power play still a work in progress

When the Bruins cashed in on three of five power plays in their 5-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday, it certainly felt like the man-advantage unit got over a sizable hump. With the small sample size, the night did get the B’s PP into the top 10 in the league with a 25% success rate going into Saturday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

But with two new major pieces added to the mix — Charlie McAvoy up top and Taylor Hall at the net-front position – coach Bruce Cassidy knows there could still be growing pains ahead.

That’s especially true in the case of the 23-year-old McAvoy, who is still a relative newbie who took over that spot that was previously run so well by Torey Krug.

Cassidy said McAvoy has his marching orders to be the distributor on the unit and, in that way at least, he might actually be a more natural fit than Krug.

“Just read through your progressions and hit them on time,” Cassidy told reporters in Toronto. “He’s a facilitator up there. Our power play doesn’t require a guy bombing it from up top. It helps every once in a while to keep people honest, don’t get me wrong. But that was the argument I had with Krug for years. He wanted to shoot a little more. I was like ‘Well, you’ve got other guys that are options in front of you and that’s how we’re going to do it, until it doesn’t work.’ And Charlie, that works for him because he’s not a shot-first guy anyway. But that’s how he has to read it. What’s available, what’s there? And do it quick. Because we have different options and teams want to take away (some). The other night, we found the middle of the ice was open. We looked at it in pre-scout. So we said ‘Charlie, make sure we get those reads, make sure it gets into (Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron) quick.’ And sell what we don’t want to do, but make sure you get it there quick. So that’s his challenge right now.”

McAvoy also needs to settle things down a bit on zone entries, on which there have been some individual attempts that have gone awry.

“You see when our entries don’t work, you see it’s like a mad scramble. And that’s where Tory was excellent, sort of saying, ‘Let’s just stick with the structure and not turn it into a 1-on-4 every time,’” said Cassidy. “That’s where Charlie has to settle the guys down, which is difficult for a new guy and a young guy, whereas Tory had a little more street cred with those guys so he could grab them and get a hold of them. That’s a challenge for Charlie as well.”

Cassidy has other options on deck. He’s got Matt Grzelcyk and Mike Reilly, both left shots with offensive instincts. Being a left shot gave Grzelcyk a leg up at the start of last year when Cassidy was searching for a replacement of the left-shooting Krug.

But McAvoy will have to really play himself out of the spot for a change to be made.

“We want to give him a legitimate chance to get it right as well,” said Cassidy. “He’s new to it, for the most part, and so is Hall. So it’s going to take time. The other three (Marchand, Bergeron and David Pastrnak) have great chemistry. There’s no issue there. But those are the pieces we have to give some time to settle in.”

Production not there yet for Hall

As the B’s struggled offensively, the focus was understandably on the top guys like Bergeron and Pastrnak, who had just 2-3-5 totals in his first eight games.

But Hall had the same numbers going into Saturday’s game, which is not exactly what anyone expected, either. But Cassidy believes he’ll reap the rewards of his spot in the lineup soon.

“Taylor’s a good person and he’s trying to work hard and be a Bruin. And I think with Marchie around, that’s the perfect scenario for him. He slides in right behind a world-class player. He can have some competition with a world-class player. He can get back to being a world-class player. So I think that’s the biggest help for Taylor, having a guy like March around every day, watching him in practice and how he’s grown his game and how hard he works,” said Cassidy. “Because Taylor likes to work. He’s on the ice a lot. He’s working on his game. I think he’s hard on himself. That’s where we’re trying to (tell him) ‘Hey, it’s not the end of the world if it’s a bad period or if something goes wrong. This is how we play here. Just keep pushing, pushing. Keep the puck out of our net. Help the team win however you can.’ He doesn’t have to be the face of the franchise. We’ve talked to him about that. Just be a good solid player. And I think that’s how his game has been. He’s developing chemistry with Charlie Coyle now, which is new. Charlie was out for some of training camp so it’s still a bit of a work in progress there. But I like what he’s done for us. He’s made us a harder team to play against and should only get better once he develops little plays in traffic and around the net with Charlie Coyle. I assume the offensive numbers will go up once that happens.” …

The B’s painfully light schedule has another head-scratching five-day break in mid-November. But before that, they play four games in six days. A highlight of that stretch will be the matchup against the Edmonton Oilers at the Garden on Thursday. By that time, the B’s players no doubt will have memorized every detail of Connor McDavid‘s magnificent goal against the Rangers on Friday night.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3wnlOdB