Absolving Tuukka Rask, 2nd guesses up top, a squandered championship window & more leftover thoughts from Game 7

As painful as last night’s defeat might be, there are still plenty of takeaways to discuss from Boston’s heartbreaking 4-1 loss to the Blues in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Let’s take a look:

Marchand’s gaffe changed the entire complexion of the game:

Based on the way Boston tilted the ice, it was going to be viewed as a loss for the Bruins if the score remained deadlocked at 0-0 going into the first intermission. A one-goal deficit, generated by Ryan O’Reilly on a great tip in front, was a worst-case scenario.

A two-goal hole was a backbreaker.

Perhaps Brad Marchand’s decision to go for a change with less than 15 seconds remaining in the stanza (and with a Blues counter-rush barrelling down on him) will not go into the Hall of Infamous Plays such as “Too Many Men”. But Marchand’s gaffe signaled the beginning of the end for the Bruins’ season, sapping away just about any momentum Boston was able to generate after peppering Jordan Binnington in net in the opening 20. 

“I don’t know, they chipped it in,” Marchand said of what he saw on the play. “I thought that guy was by himself, so I went for a change, and a couple more guys jumped up on the play. I didn’t see the replay, but yeah.”

You win as a team, you lose as a team, sure. But even Bruce Cassidy noted that Boston was never able from those brutal final seconds in the first.

“I think it just gives them more life,” he said. “ I think we’re going to keep playing, we’re a resilient group, we have all year, we’ve played through a lot of stuff.  You know you get into the room and you figure the hockey gods aren’t really on your side but they did what they had to do to put the puck in the net and we didn’t in the first period. So I think it gives them a lot of life.  Any good defensive team, we’re both that, that has a lead has done a good job with it in this series so we knew it was an uphill battle but the game wasn’t over and we talked about that.

“I don’t think anybody was down after the first period, we just knew the task at hand was going to be a challenge.  We had to play a certain way and I guess we didn’t in the second period. I don’t think we played the proper way to generate offense considering the way their goaltender played in the first period.  You’re going to have to get some screens and some second chances and I don’t think we did enough of that in the second period to give us some life unfortunately.”



This Bruins core might never get a chance like this again:

From speaking with quite a few veterans on the Bruins beat — many who were in the locker rooms following crushing defeats against the Flyers in 2010 and the Blackhawks in 2013 — there was a clear consensus. They had never seen a locker room as devastated as it was in the minutes following Wednesday’s loss.

Some sobbed at their lockers. Charlie McAvoy struggled to find words to describe what had just transpired. And for veterans like Zdeno Chara and Marchand, responses were often delivered by holding back tears.

Cassidy, one of the best in the business when it comes to delivering expansive responses to inquiries from the media regardless of the final on the scoreboard, didn’t have much to offer.

“There wasn’t much to say,” Cassidy said of his message to his players following the loss. “There’s nothing that I can really say in this moment I believe, other than I was proud of them and they should walk out of here with their heads up.  That’s it. There’s no long speech, there just isn’t. I’ll have an opportunity to catch up with the players in the next little while but right now they don’t want to hear anything from me.”

The future of the Bruins is promising, with youngsters like David Pastrnak, Brandon Carlo, Jake DeBrusk, Matt Grzelcyk, Sean Kuraly, McAvoy and others all expected to take another big step in 2019-20. Prospects like Urho Vaakanainen and Jack Studnicka may not be that far behind.

But for the veterans in the locker room (Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Tuukka Rask, Chara and Marchand), the reality of the situation was hard to shake. This very well could be the best chance this group had to lift the Cup once again.

“I said it all year, they’re second to none in the National Hockey League in my opinion.,” Cassidy said of his veterans. “Big reason why we were able to get this far.  The way they conduct their business, their professionalism, how they approach training, just everything you need to be a good pro. They’re doing their best to pass it on to the young guys and pay it forward.  Hopefully the next generation of Bruins are their equals in that department.”

An interesting offseason awaits for this team, but as a whole, a large portion of this roster will remain intact in 2019-20, and very well could orchestrate another deep postseason run next spring.

But an already arduous road in 2019 promises to be even more daunting during the next campaign.

An already dominant Lightning will be ready to go scorched earth next season after getting embarrassed by the Blue Jackets in the first round, as will the Capitals. The Maple Leafs have to do some cap space gymnastics, but their dynamic, young forward corps will be another year older, while Kyle Dubas will be frantically trying to bolster his club’s blue line. The Sabres figure to be much better, as will the Panthers, especially if they snag Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky in free agency.

Plenty of things can change over the course of a long season, for sure. But years from now, we could look back on Wednesday night as the last major push for a group of players that led the resurgence of this franchise back in the mid-2000s. And if this is it, what a damn shame.

“You never know when you’ll get that chance again,” Marchand said. “It could be the last one for all of us, but yeah, you know, when you’re that close, and it doesn’t happen, it hurts.”

Don’t make Tuukka Rask the fall guy, please

It’s already begun, hasn’t it? Just 60 minutes away from a slam dunk of a Conn Smythe campaign, Tuukka Rask has once again been subject to the jeers and dialogue centered around his ability to be the man in net on a Cup-winning club.

It’s an unfair standard for the veteran netminder, who will never shake being in the shadow of Tim Thomas’ heroics in 2011. Sure, Rask was not at his best on Wednesday night. But whether it be a tip home in front, the defensive debacle in front of him on Alex Pietrangelo’s goal or the open slot that Brayden Schenn ripped home the Blues’ third goal of the night, Boston’s netminder was often left out to dry by his teammates, who only managed to score one goal over the first 57 minutes of a Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final — on home ice, for that matter.

“He was our MVP, for sure,” Krejci said. “There’s nothing I can say. He was the MVP, he was the best player, he kept us in the game so many times. You know, he deserved it. We all did. Just today, it wasn’t our night. Too bad it was the most important day of our lives, and we’re going to remember this one.”

For as disappointing as Wednesday’s loss might be, the Bruins likely wouldn’t have been in this position had it not been for Rask’s play over the following two months. Entering Game 7, Rask was 3-0 with a .953 save percentage during games in which the Bruins faced elimination. In three close-out scenarios this postseason, Rask turned aside 95 shots of the 96 that came his way, posting two shutouts and a goals-against average of 0.33.

It won’t change the narrative, as frustrating as it might be. But don’t pin this loss on the man in net.

“Well there really shouldn’t be, we’re a team,” Cassidy said of blame directed at Rask. “We scored a goal with two minutes left, I mean he could have stood on his head and given up one so.  They outplayed us at certain moments of the game at all positions and that’s why they won. The second goal is a great play by their defenseman to join the rush. They finished some plays when they had to and we didn’t.

“Obviously Binnington made some big saves for them in the first period. (Rask) was excellent, he was our best player.  I don’t think anybody is leaving the building tonight unfortunately in our locker room saying they put their best foot forward unfortunately and that’s the whole group.  We didn’t get it done at every position, coaching staff, whatever, they ended up being better than us and did what they had to do to win. It’s that simple.”

Bruins went down with the ship waiting for its top line to break out:

It seemed inevitable that Boston’s top line was going to finally break out during 5v5 play against the Blues, with a Stanley Cup within their grasp.

No such scenario came to fruition, however, with the trio of of Bergeron, Marchand and Pastrnak combining for just one goal and two total points during 5v5 play during the seven-game series. It will be interesting to see just how banged up this trio and the rest of Boston’s skaters were, because it was fairly obvious that all three were clearly hampered — whether it be Bergeron at faceoffs and Marchand/Pastrnak’s inability to generate much zip on their shots.

Of course, it’s a bit of a poor excuse, given the fact that the Blues were also dealing with a slew of ailments as well, with the Conn Smythe winner in O’Reilly playing since the second round of the playoffs with a broken rib.

Bergeron and Co. simply didn’t have an answer for whenever they were matched up against the Blues’ top-two lines anchored by Schenn and O’Reilly, with the Blues holding a 6-0 edge in goals scored over the course of the series during that stretch. 

For a line that established themselves last year as one of the best in hockey thanks to both their offensive potential and lockdown capabilities, the 63-37-88 combination was often mortal throughout the 2018-19 season. In 461 minutes of 5v5 play during the regular season, that group was out for 27 goals scored, but 24 against. During the postseason (186:40 TOI), they were out on the ice for six goals scored — and seven goals against.

Mind you, this trio at one point last year was averaging 3.94 goals per 60 minutes, to go along with a 0.23 goals against per 60 min. I.e., they were only relinquishing a goal about every 240 minutes of game action.

Perhaps it’s fruitless now to second guess, but it would have been interesting to see how the lineup would have adjusted if Cassidy opted to bump Pastrnak down to the second line and slotted up, say, Danton Heinen to play with Bergeron and Marchand. Heinen drew the ire of many this postseason due to his play in the O-zone, but the winger was fantastic as an added defensive presence up on that top line during the regular season, with Boston holding an 11-4 edge in goals scored during the 197 minutes of 5v5 TOI that that combo logged together.

Perhaps it would have turned the tide of this series, or at the very least, limit some of the chances that Schenn and O’Reilly were able to generate. I suppose we’ll never know now.