Post-Game Talk: GAME 6 - Hockey Club 2 BRUINS 1 F OT

[BiteThisBurrows]

Without Swayman they blow us out. This team cannot score.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Two thing are pretty obvious with this team right now;

1) They cannot skate. At all. I had the Utah feed and the announcers were going on and on about how big and imposing the Bruins are with x guys on the roster 6"3 or taller. I never really thought about it and at first i was like "f*** yeah that's what they do" then my brain immediately went "no wait, that's not a good thing" upon realization the majority of the giants on this roster have zero skill to speak of. You can have these guys and win, no one is going to argue that. Hell their 4th line has been their best line to start the year. But the problem becomes when these guys start to clog up the majority of your top 9. Utah f***ing skated circles around them all night and it's apparent to everyone not named Don or Cam that shockingly, big and slow doesn't work in today's game. If you're going to be big and slow, at least push the other team around for god's sake.

2) To further elaborate on point one, this team has a painfully obvious lack of skill. They did before after Bergeron and Krejci called it quits, but i think it somehow got worse in the offseason. Marchand and Pastrnak are the team's two best skill guys. Both guys have started like shit and suddenly the entire offense goes silent. Guys like Lindholm, Coyle and Zacha obviously aren't bums but like, you need the rest of your top 6 to pick up the slack when there's gaps in production. The rest of the roster are all essentially clones of the same player; sandpaper types that have oodles of grit but little else. Geekie, Frederic, Brazeau, Kastelic, Beecher, Koepke. No serious team is playing Brazeau in the top 6 like Boston did tonight. Poitras i won't be too harsh on. He's still a kid.

Power play is beyond horrendous. It hasn't really been the same since Krug left for St. Louis but now it's bad to the point it goes beyond personnel.

You could have tried something to address this in the offseason. Maybe keep DeBrusk, maybe look for an actual top 6 forward somewhere else. Instead, Sweeney chooses to give 5+ million to Nikita Zadorov because he heard the name "Big Z" and probably assumed he was getting late 2000s Zdeno Chara.

Speed kills. Look at all the upper echelon teams in the league right now. Dallas has it in spades, so does New Jersey. Shit even the Jets have more skill in their top 6 as a whole than the Bruins do.

 

[RiverbottomChuck]

Geekie joining the roster should help the middle six.

Any word on when he'll be ready?

You'd think a regular being scratched would light a fire under a guy but him and Braz did the same as every other game.

 

[Aussie Bruin]

Mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, Utah outworked the Bruins and played like a more cohesive team. They generated more chances. But on the other, the Bruins actually had more high quality chances, the defense on the whole is gradually improving (albeit let down by more lapses in the 3rd) and the game was very much there to be won with a period to go. A point on the road, against a team that's decent and seemingly on the up, is never to be sniffed at.

I'm not as gloom and doom as some here seem to be. The team is 3-2-1 and very much staying in the mix in their division while in the process of trying to reinvent itself with quite a different-looking roster. Yes they're disjointed and some of their play is really sloppy or lacking effort/intensity, but there are some positives to build on too.

My concern is more whether this roster is built properly. I fear there is a mismatch between the way they need to play to be effective and the mentality and culture of the players and the locker room as a whole. This team is short on speed and raw talent. What they are is big and for the most part quite experienced. But to make use of that size they need to play tough, gritty, physical and mean. Dump and chase, bodies to the net, force the opposition into mistakes. Simple, hard-working hockey with an edge. But look at these guys. McAvoy, Carlo, Pasta, Coyle, Beecher and Lohrei don't have a mean bone in their bodies. Frederic was feisty when he was young and looking to make an impression, but he's a teddy bear at heart. Zacha of all people seems to understand the need to step up the nasty, but it's not natural to him. Sway has moxie, but he's the goalie. I just don't see them being able to play 'big and bad'. It's not in them. And if they can't do that, is a big and slow-ish roster going to be able to take it up to the very best teams in the league?

I don't think the team has been well-coached so far this year. Not liking quite a lot of what we've seen from Monty, and I don't believe he's yet got a handle on how to get this kind of lineup working. He's more visibly grumpy, and I understand why, but I'm not sure he's dealing with it constructively. But I still remind myself we need to patient. Only 6 games in. Long way to go. This really is a different team to what the Bruins have had for a long time. It was never going to click overnight. As a team more built for playoff hockey, it's going to be more difficult for it to find its rhythm in the regular season. We saw that from the Panthers when they changed their approach two years ago, and that turned out pretty well. But it took some stumbles on the way there. The Bruins need to stick at it and some senior guys need to have a look at themselves in the mirror and step up. Need to see a bit more yet before any major shakeup moves are considered.

 

[caz16]

Mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, Utah outworked the Bruins and played like a more cohesive team. They generated more chances. But on the other, the Bruins actually had more high quality chances, the defense on the whole is gradually improving (albeit let down by more lapses in the 3rd) and the game was very much there to be won with a period to go. A point on the road, against a team that's decent and seemingly on the up, is never to be sniffed at.

I'm not as gloom and doom as some here seem to be. The team is 3-2-1 and very much staying in the mix in their division while in the process of trying to reinvent itself with quite a different-looking roster. Yes they're disjointed and some of their play is really sloppy or lacking effort/intensity, but there are some positives to build on too.

My concern is more whether this roster is built properly. I fear there is a mismatch between the way they need to play to be effective and the mentality and culture of the players and the locker room as a whole. This team is short on speed and raw talent. What they are is big and for the most part quite experienced. But to make use of that size they need to play tough, gritty, physical and mean. Dump and chase, bodies to the net, force the opposition into mistakes. Simple, hard-working hockey with an edge. But look at these guys. McAvoy, Carlo, Pasta, Coyle, Beecher and Lohrei don't have a mean bone in their bodies. Frederic was feisty when he was young and looking to make an impression, but he's a teddy bear at heart. Zacha of all people seems to understand the need to step up the nasty, but it's not natural to him. Sway has moxie, but he's the goalie. I just don't see them being able to play 'big and bad'. It's not in them. And if they can't do that, is a big and slow-ish roster going to be able to take it up to the very best teams in the league?

I don't think the team has been well-coached so far this year. Not liking quite a lot of what we've seen from Monty, and I don't believe he's yet got a handle on how to get this kind of lineup working. He's more visibly grumpy, and I understand why, but I'm not sure he's dealing with it constructively. But I still remind myself we need to patient. Only 6 games in. Long way to go. This really is a different team to what the Bruins have had for a long time. It was never going to click overnight. As a team more built for playoff hockey, it's going to be more difficult for it to find its rhythm in the regular season. We saw that from the Panthers when they changed their approach two years ago, and that turned out pretty well. But it took some stumbles on the way there. The Bruins need to stick at it and some senior guys need to have a look at themselves in the mirror and step up. Need to see a bit more yet before any major shakeup moves are considered.

When I can't watch a game, I always look for your posts, they are always so rational. Actually even when I do watch, I look for your opinion since it is always so well thought out and less emotional than a lot of the posts.

I don't think I will bother watching it this morning, sounds like it was frustrating! Thanks for your summaries!

 

[Aussie Bruin]

When I can't watch a game, I always look for your posts, they are always so rational. Actually even when I do watch, I look for your opinion since it is always so well thought out and less emotional than a lot of the posts.

I don't think I will bother watching it this morning, sounds like it was frustrating! Thanks for your summaries!

Thank-you and you're welcome! I try to be even-handed. Don't always succeed. This current team I'm still trying to understand and get a real feel for, but then so are the players. The regular season simply started too early for them, in a lot of ways, but there is time to sort things out. Only have to look at the Avs and Preds to know that if you're even a little bit off or caught behind, this league will punish you quickly.

And yeah, this wasn't the worst game, and in real-time it was passably watchable, but I wouldn't go out of my way to view it after the fact. Neither team could really take it to a higher level and there were no stand-out plays or much to take note of from the Bruins. 4th line continues to excel, that's about it. They get another opportunity on Tuesday. Can only look forward to that and hope for better.

 

[DaStinger]

Primary scoring still missing to start the season.