Post-Game Talk: GAME 70 - THE BEAR waits for the Red Sox season to start - Vegas 5 BRUINS 1

Watched the first two periods and then went to bed.
In the first the Bruins team looked like it was trying, but as the game went on Vegas slowly wore the Bruins down and took over the game with more talent and a deeper roster.
Enough said, it is what it is.
This^ I am not angry at the players ...not their fault. We have one scoring line and a diminished defense.
 
When the other teams heat map looks like this:

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I don't care what goalie is in net, they're getting lit up. Our top pair right now is Zadorov and Jokiharju. That's a 3rd pairing on a playoff team. Lohrei is a work in progress, Peeke is a 3rd pairing guy and Wotherspoon & Mitchell are #7's at best.

Its mind blowing to me how infatuated this board is with Swayman. Since February this offense ranks T-27th in goals scored and 27th in SOG. The defense has allowed the 12th most high danger chances and has the 7th highest expected goal against......but Swayman is the only person that is routinely talked about as being a problem lol.

If you look at this team since the start of February, Matt Poitras is T-5th in points among Bruins. A kid that hasn't played for the team in 2-3 weeks is 5th on your team in scoring over the last ~2 months. You want to look at goal scoring? Khusnutdinov has played 6 games for the team and he's T-5th in goals since February. You know who he's tied with? Cole FREAKIN Koepke, who scored his 2 goals in one game and those have been his only 2 points for the last 20 games.
Swayman wasn't playing well before both Lindholm and McAvoy went down. His hold out cost him the time to get his game together. He comes off as arrogant, which only works when you're a leader. He talks like a leader, but doesn't walk like one. A top 5 goalie as he and the rest of the league viewed him during the off season, steal half a dozen games a year. The eye test says he's flat out missed some goals a Top % G has to stop.
Also Ullmark and Swayman faced the upper half of the league in high danger shots seen, their 2 big years together.
He's just been a low average to poor NHL goalie this year.
Do I expect a bounce back, I hope so. it's a killer of a contract if he doesn't
 
Tough watching a team with one line & a bunch of 3rd/4th liners.

Feel Zacha could be moved to another line to try to spread out "depth". Geekie/Pasta chemistry is unreal tho. That's about all I got from last night.

Still blows my mind they've run pretty much the same lineup out the past couple weeks & it's been getting embarrassed.

Realllllly hope they look outside for new coaching staff next season. If Leach is promoted teams gonna be the same pile of mess.
Zacha is a part of that chemistry. That line is one of the only things working out on the Bs...I wouldn't touch it.

They have plenty of things on their plate to figure out. The Pasta line isn't one of them.
 
Yeah he is. And a decent one, too. Lohrei is just green and is going to have nights like last night. He has been a bit poor of late, but so has the whole team. That's why I have trouble singling individuals out. When the whole team is subpar, its hard for anyone to look good that isn't on Pasta's line, and even Pasta was not great last night. Asking players to play above their level night in and night out is eventually going to end up looking like this at some point.

I would like to see Geekie, Zacha and Pasta on 3 different lines for a game. Give some of the younger guys a little hope of getting an actual scoring opportunity.

Lohrei now at -26. Last Bruins defenseman to match that was Steve Staios in 1996-97. Incredibly, he did it in only 54 games.
 
He's good on face-offs. His only redeeming quality. After the puck is dropped, he's constantly chasing as his hockey sense isn't NHL caliber.
Amazing skater, great size, but that doesn't make up for his hockey sense I agree.

Doesn't have the creativity or the shot to make up for it on the offensive side. Not smart enough on the defensive side.
 
Zacha is a part of that chemistry. That line is one of the only things working out on the Bs...I wouldn't touch it.

They have plenty of things on their plate to figure out. The Pasta line isn't one of them.
Yeah I'm just glad we have a line we can pencil in and rely on.

Can't say the same about the rest of the 9 forwards.
 
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I would like to see Geekie, Zacha and Pasta on 3 different lines for a game. Give some of the younger guys a little hope of getting an actual scoring opportunity.

Lohrei now at -26. Last Bruins defenseman to match that was Steve Staios in 1996-97. Incredibly, he did it in only 54 games.

Staios, blast from the past! Yeah I think it's time they write the playoff chase off, it's about hopeless now and so time to do some experimenting.
 
Yeah I'm just glad we have a line we can pencil in and rely on.

Can't say the same about the rest of the 9 forwards.
IMO there are some good 3d and 4th liners. It is the second line that needs fixing.

If we get Charlie Mac and Hampus back it will help, but the D (even with them) wasn't as good as I had hoped. There are times when the PK was so bad, and you usually do not see that on the Bs.

Goaltending....Korpi has been fine as a backup. Sway needs to work with goalie Bob.
 
Yeah he is. And a decent one, too. Lohrei is just green and is going to have nights like last night. He has been a bit poor of late, but so has the whole team. That's why I have trouble singling individuals out. When the whole team is subpar, its hard for anyone to look good that isn't on Pasta's line, and even Pasta was not great last night. Asking players to play above their level night in and night out is eventually going to end up looking like this at some point.
Lohrei is becoming a favorite of mine. He is green but IMO there is so much potential. I like Peeke too.
 
Time to just play the kids. The pipe dream of playoffs is over. I know we are not eliminated mathematically but its over. Move on to evaluating players. See what you do in fa and draft.
The only reason to keep watching at this point is to see what you have with the kids. If you won't give Lysell, Farinacci, Minten etc. a look please let me know. I am living on Social Security and to get the games FUBO is 95 bucks a month (plus another 50 for internet). If you continue to roll out this lineup, please let me know. I'll shitcan FUBO and use the money to catch up on the light bill and buy a dozen eggs.
 
Swayman wasn't playing well before both Lindholm and McAvoy went down. His hold out cost him the time to get his game together. He comes off as arrogant, which only works when you're a leader. He talks like a leader, but doesn't walk like one. A top 5 goalie as he and the rest of the league viewed him during the off season, steal half a dozen games a year. The eye test says he's flat out missed some goals a Top % G has to stop.
Also Ullmark and Swayman faced the upper half of the league in high danger shots seen, their 2 big years together.
He's just been a low average to poor NHL goalie this year.
Do I expect a bounce back, I hope so. it's a killer of a contract if he doesn't

Oh he hasn't been playing to what he's capable of, but most of the team hasn't. My issue is all most people want to do is blame Swayman. And most of the animosity towards Swayman is because he did an interview this summer and did give some fans the warm and fuzzy comments they wanted to hear.

You want to hear a crazy stat for this season?

The Bruins are 4-4-1 when Swayman allows 2 goals this season. When your goalie only allows 2 goals you should be winning 90% of those games. The worst team in the NHL has a GF/GP of 2.53 this season and yet we have a .500 P% when Swayman allows 2 goals. This team has been held to 1 goal or less a total of 18 times this year, that's basically 1 in 4 games where you're lucky if you get 1pt. They've been held to 2 goals are less in 36 games this year, which is essentially every other game.

Swayman coming into this season had played in 132 NHL games and had a 2.34 GAA / .916 SV% (not including the playoffs). So did Swayman suddenly forget how to play hockey? or has it been a perfect storm of a season. The coach was released after ~20 games, Lindholm went down early and never returned. Guys that hit career highs last year suddenly came back down to earth. Yes it hurt Swayman not to get a full camp in, but it wasn't like he was sitting home on the couch doing nothing.

This season to me was again just a perfect storm. A lot of things went wrong and the team had a lot of bad bounces. If you're into advanced stats then you know PDO is basically a "puck luck" stat. The Bruins this season at the 5 worst PDO in the NHL.
 
That was the first game I haven't watched in years.....at least it looks like I didn't miss much. Despite subscribing to Center Ice it was blacked out in the Fresno area............apparently this is considered 'local' to Las Vegas despite being 400 plus miles away and in another State. LOL. If you're paying for a subscription service you should get EVERY SINGLE GAME, no matter which channel it's on and weather you live in Timbuktu or the parking lot of the arena.

One more thought on this.........aren't all or at least an overwhelming percentage of LVGK games sold out? How does the NHL expect to draw new fans (or retain old ones) if I can't buy a ticket to the game or even watch it on TV (legally, at least). They're basically begging people to pirate their streams.
 
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Oh he hasn't been playing to what he's capable of, but most of the team hasn't. My issue is all most people want to do is blame Swayman. And most of the animosity towards Swayman is because he did an interview this summer and did give some fans the warm and fuzzy comments they wanted to hear.

You want to hear a crazy stat for this season?

The Bruins are 4-4-1 when Swayman allows 2 goals this season. When your goalie only allows 2 goals you should be winning 90% of those games. The worst team in the NHL has a GF/GP of 2.53 this season and yet we have a .500 P% when Swayman allows 2 goals. This team has been held to 1 goal or less a total of 18 times this year, that's basically 1 in 4 games where you're lucky if you get 1pt. They've been held to 2 goals are less in 36 games this year, which is essentially every other game.

Swayman coming into this season had played in 132 NHL games and had a 2.34 GAA / .916 SV% (not including the playoffs). So did Swayman suddenly forget how to play hockey? or has it been a perfect storm of a season. The coach was released after ~20 games, Lindholm went down early and never returned. Guys that hit career highs last year suddenly came back down to earth. Yes it hurt Swayman not to get a full camp in, but it wasn't like he was sitting home on the couch doing nothing.

This season to me was again just a perfect storm. A lot of things went wrong and the team had a lot of bad bounces. If you're into advanced stats then you know PDO is basically a "puck luck" stat. The Bruins this season at the 5 worst PDO in the NHL.
Regardless, he needs to play like a 8.25M goalie
 
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Bruins Notes: Joe Sacco Doesn't Hold Back After Lopsided Loss

'We're trying to make the cute play'

The Boston Bruins searched for a clean slate to kick off their road trip but fell (very) short to begin their five-game road trip against the Las Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night — extending the team’s losing streak to four games.

Boston didn’t score until the third period after Las Vegas had already tallied five. It prevented the team from enduring a shutout defeat, however, it couldn’t clean up the ongoing inability to create scoring chances throughout their 5-1 loss. The Bruins tallied 19 shots on goal and just one power-play opportunity, creating a discrepancy hole they couldn’t dig themselves out of.

It’s an issue the team has talked about recently, but locker room conversations haven’t been enough to overcome opponents amid the losing skid.

“It’s something that we talk about,” Bruins head coach Joe Sacco said, as seen on NESN. “Obviously we over-pass and that’s something that has to be fixed, we talk about. You know, playing off the shot, more shot volume. We did it for a while, we had success, but now we’re trying to make the cute play, the fancy play all the time. It doesn’t work in this league. That’s too good of a team. They defend the middle of the ice too well.”

The Bruins have been outscored, 20-8, in their last four games, and the common trend that dropped the team to 30-31-9 in Sin City has been scoring opportunities. Boston competed defensively early, holding the Golden Knights scoreless through the first period. But that fell apart once Las Vegas found its rhythm and recorded back-to-back multi-goal periods to close out the Bruins with ease.

“That’s a testament to our team and it’s our job to combat whatever they bring to us, and I thought we did a good job of that,” Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman said, as seen on NESN. “We just didn’t get the results.”

Morgan Geekie’s 24th goal of the season got Boston on the board at 17:49 in the third period, and the 26-year-old feels the pressure of the team’s ongoing slump.

“I think for sure it’s something that weighs on you,” Geekie said, as seen on NESN. “… I wouldn’t say that’s what did us in tonight by any means, but it’s frustrating for sure.”

The Bruins have dropped seven of their last 10 games and throughout that stretch, they’ve scored over three goals just once — in their 4-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on March 8.

Here are more notes from Thursday night’s Bruins-Golden Knights game:

— Swayman allowed five goals on 32 shots from the Golden Knights, which marked the third consecutive game in which he’s surrendered four-plus goals. The 26-year-old has gone 0-3-0 over his last three starts, notching an .847 save percentage.

— Golden Knights forward Pavel Dorofeyev stole the show on Thursday night, netting three goals against the Bruins to secure his second career hat trick. The 24-year-old has scored six goals throughout his past six games for Las Vegas.

— David Pastrnak assisted on Geekie’s third-period goal, which secured the 28-year-old’s third consecutive season with 50-plus assists. He joins Ray Bourque (11), Phil Esposito (6), Bobby Orr (5), Johnny Bucyk (3), Brad Marchand (3), Marc Savard (3), Jean Ratelle (3) and Fred Standfield (3) as the only other three players in Bruins history to reach that feat.

— Boston has gone three straight games being held to less than 20 shots for the first time in franchise history, dating back to when the Bruins only totaled 12 in Saturday night’s 6-2 loss to the Lightning.

— The Bruins will continue their road trip by facing off against the San Jose Sharks on Friday night. Puck drop from SAP Center is scheduled for 10:30 p.m. ET, and that game will be aired on ESPN+. Boston will return to the NESN airwaves for Sunday night’s game — set for 10:30 p.m. — against the Los Angeles Kings.
 
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