Bruins notebook: Defenseman Jordan Oesterle getting his chance
With Hampus Lindholm out of the lineup for the foreseeable future with a knee injury, some other defensemen are getting a chance to play important roles.
On Sunday, Jordan Oesterle got his opportunity and he made the most of it, primarily by allowing his defense partner, Charlie McAvoy, to do what he does best.
In the B’s 6-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens, McAvoy had arguably his best game of the season, recording a pair of goals with a plus-4 rating. Oesterle, a 32-year-old veteran who is in his sixth NHL stop, picked up a helper on one of the goal and was plus-2 in 19:19 of ice time.
“Probably the best way to describe it was just a steady influence,” said coach Joe Sacco on Oesterle’s affect on McAvoy’s play. “He played a simple game, he kept the game in front of him, he didn’t try to do too much or force too many plays and was pretty solid defensively. That’s what we’re looking for from Osty, especially if you’re going to play with Charlie. It freed Charlie up to be to play his game a little more.”
Oesterle began his NHL career in Edmonton and then moved on to Chicago, Arizona, Detroit and Calgary. His play on Sunday kept him in the lineup on Tuesday for the game against one of his old teams, the Red Wings, at the Garden.
Oesterle had signed a two-year deal for the league minimum $775,000 last summer and, after clearing waivers, started the season in Providence before being called up on Nov. 13. After sitting for a few games, he was put in a primo spot on the top pair with McAvoy on Sunday.
“I’ve done it before throughout my career. I’ve been in this situation. I was lucky enough to play a couple of games with Charlie before sitting out a bit. He’s easy to play with, just lots of communication and this group’s easy to come in and join,” said the Michigan native.
“I’m just trying to play to my game and try to complement as much as I can, give him the puck and let him do his thing. It’s obviously fun playing with the defenseman like that.”
Oesterle’s tool kit brings some solid skating and tight gaps when he’s at his best. He’s got offensive instincts as well but he said he’s learned through the years when to defer and when to take what’s given to him.
“I think maybe early in my career I deferred a little bit more but I’ve gone through this situation multiple times throughout my career, playing with Duncan Keith in Chicago. I got myself to the NHL myself, so I’m confident in my abilities. But it’s obvious that you want to give someone like (McAvoy) or (David Pastrnak) the puck when you can,” said Oesterle.
Power outage
The B’s offense has broken out a bit lately, scoring six goals in two of their last three games. But the power play remains stuck in neutral heading into Tuesday’s game against Detroit. They were still dead last, ranked 32nd in the league with an 11.7% success rate.
Power play failure can be confounding. Last season the Pittsburgh Penguins, with such luminaries as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Erik Karlsson, finished 30th in the league at 15.3%. Now it’s the B’s turn to struggle, despite having one of the league’s top goal scorers of the past decade in Pastrnak.
“Sometimes you just lose that confidence when you hop over the boards,” said Sacco. “When your unit or line is called to get out there, sometimes its just about regaining that confidence that you once had. For us, they have to capture that momentum again. It’s not necessarily scoring goals. You hear that all the time. But when you go out there you have to make sure that you’re creating momentum for your team. You’re not giving up some shorthanded chances, you’re getting a couple of quality looks in the slot, you’re getting some chances so that you can feed off of that, the next unit can feed off of that. Even if we’re not successful scoring, if we get opportunities, it’s just that energy that you build from that. And you don’t want to take away from the group.”
Sacco and the coaching staff had trotted out different units in Saturday’s practice, with the biggest change being the separation of Pastrnak and Brad Marchand. But Sacco said that he and the staff wasn’t too wild about how it looked in practice and went back to the old units for Sunday’s game when they had an 0-for-2 outing.
Prior to Tuesday’s morning skate at Warrior Ice Arena, the top unit of Marchand, Pastrnak, Pavel Zacha, McAvoy and Elias Lindholm did some work on their own, with Lindholm ripping one-timers from the bumper spot. They did the more usual structured practice at the end of the skate.
“We have to be better, we have to shoot more, we have to recover pucks especially. I feel like we are one and done, that’s why we don’t get enough looks,” said Pastrnak. “We just have to bear down and win battles because that’s when the holes open up and then I get the big opportunity. The kills are so good, if you’re just going into the set (structure) all the time and you don’t recover pucks, then you can’t score goals. We obviously need to shoot more and create better looks for ourselves. We were buzzing around in practice so hopefully we get some (on Tuesday).”
Tip of the helmet
From a personal standpoint, Pastrnak snapped a seven-game goal-less skid on Sunday. One thing that was different for him was that, in warmups, he wore an old Cooper helmet.
But he said he’s not superstitious and he won’t continue to wear it.
Said Pastrnak: “Honestly, I just wanted to give credit to all the old timers playing back in the day in those gears. I can’t even imagine putting on that gear today, especially the goalies. So it was more like a tribute to the old timers.”
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/iJmUr3x
Post a Comment