Yesterday was a good lesson on where our team needs to be come May. Of course it would have been nice to beat the Bruins, but there is a lot of good things that can come from yesterdays loss IMO. Boston played about as perfect a road game as you could ask for IMO.
I think we showed some really good play at times, but Boston's attention to detail was ultimately the difference maker. I hate to say it, because I hate the Bruins, their fanbase, and the entire Boston sports community for that matter, but that team is scary good. Not because they have the most talent. I honestly don't even think they have top-5 overall team talent in the NHL. But what they have better then any other team by a mile is swagger, buy-in, and most importantly attention to detail. They play as close to mistake free hockey as any team I can ever remember watching. They've given us next to no free ice in the 3 games we've played them this season.
That said, lets talk some positives. I was happy to see how willingly we were to put pucks on the net despite them being from non threatening areas. Sometimes in games like these, we have a tendency to want to make a low percentage pass or get cute with the puck instead of just outworking our man in in the corners or in front of the blue paint. I thought we showed a real strong presence in the offensive zone, established a good cycle for most of the night and put pucks in behind their D. We worked the low to high and put pucks towards net pretty well all night. It was clearly the message to the D to do so. Which is encouraging.
That said, our forwards lost a ton of battles in front of the night, and we struggled to get pucks through the traffic from the back end. A lot of that credit has to go to the Bruins commitment to defensive zone structure, and their D in specific at boxing our forwards out so well.
Sure we need Sammy to make a couple of those saves, but lets not forget some of those early saves off of clear cut breaks from Clifton and Pasta. At the end of the day, we lost focus way too much. A team like Boston will take advantage, and for the most part, they did just that. The shorty against is a prime example of this lack of focus. It's a 5-10 second lack of focus that ends up in the back of our net. Mitch does everything right, and the 4 other guys just straight leg their way into the defensive zone and get caught puck watching. Not even 1 Leaf looked at anyone other then puck carrier. Sure it's a nice effort from the Bruins PK there, but that is horrendous structure/effort that we gifted them.
All n all, it was not nearly as disastrous of a game as everyone wants to make out. The overwhelming narrative has been that we physically can't keep up with the Bruins. I think last night shows that we absolutely can. I think we just need to remain hyper patient with respect to structure and continue to work pucks down low. We cannot trade chances with this team. We need to play low scoring and low event hockey every time to beat this team. I think the same can be said about TB, but to a slightly lesser degree. Both teams don't give up freebies, we need to find a way to do the exact same. The cup is usually awarded to the team that makes the least mistakes. Hardly never can you outscore your mistakes and win it all. We've come a long way in that regard over the past 6 years, but we still need reminders like yesterday to show us just how much more we have to go.
Enjoy the break fellas, rest up for hopefully a long playoff run!
