For the first time since March 2016, the Bruins have dropped five consecutive games in a row, with a 3-2 loss to the Lightning on Thursday night standing as the fourth straight contest in which Boston has failed to capture any points in the standings.
As Boston looks to right the ship on Saturday night against the Panthers, let’s take a look at two concerning — and recurring — trends from this brutal stretch for the Bruins.
The power play might be taking a step backwards: As we noted following Wednesday’s 3-2 loss to the Capitals, don’t expect Bruce Cassidy to completely reshuffle the pieces on Boston’s top power-play unit — even in the midst of what was a 2-for-25 slump at the time.
For as much as the B’s had failed to cash in on these power-play chances for an extended stretch, they have at least peppered whatever goalie they’ve been matched up against during 5v4 sequences. In their previous four games entering Thursday night, the Bruins outshot the competition, 31-7, through 27:28 of TOI during the power play.
But on Thursday against the Bolts, any progress — as frustratingly slow as its been for the last few games — was negated by a brutal showing on the man advantage by the Bruins.
While Boston failed to capitalize on both of its power-play bids, it was the manner in which the Bruins failed to tilt the ice in their favor during that 4:00 stretch — as Boston only managed to land two of its four shot attempts on goal against Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Boston’s final power-play sequence of the night was particularly disheartening. Trailing, 2-1, midway through the third period, Boston was gifted a chance to secure the equalizer after Steven Stamkos was whistled for a hook against Charlie McAvoy.
But in the pivotal moment of the contest, Boston constantly
shot itself in the foot, negating three O-zone chances by way of an offsides ruling, a stretch in which Patrice Bergeron coughed up the puck after skating himself into a corner (as seen below) and a failed feed from Torey Krug to Brad Marchand on an attempted zone entry that the Lightning were easily able to corral and fire back down the other end of the ice.
Boston’s power play might have an easier go of it on Saturday against the Panthers and Sergei Bobrovsky, who has woefully underperformed in Year 1 of 7 (!) in Florida. But Tampa’s PK wasn’t exactly a world-class unit entering Thursday’s matchup with a 79.4% success rate (19th in NHL). And they didn’t need to be, as Boston was its own worst enemy on the power play — an area the B’s usually thrive in.
The personnel may not be shuffled around, but something needs to change, and fast.
The middle-six has been stagnant: It's been a hallmark of many Bruins teams over the last couple of years when the bumps in the road inevitably present themselves.
As Patrice Bergeron's Line goes, so goes the rest of the B's.
That conundrum has been true in some regards during this recent slump. Yes, they haven't been the three-headed monster that picked apart defenses with ease in the first few months of the 2019-20 campaign, but the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line has been far from dormant.
Since returning from injury on Monday, Bergeron has scored two goals over three games – with a third tally wiped off the board thanks to an offsides review from the Capitals on Wednesday. Marchand has added four assists of his own during this five-game stretch, while Pastrnak tallied a goal against the Caps as well.
Yes, not the expected offensive output from that trio, but what has really hampered the B's during this stretch has been the lack of production from elsewhere on the roster — and in particular, on Boston's second and third line.
"We're just not getting anything from the middle of the lineup in terms of offense," Cassidy said following Thursday's loss. "You need four lines to produce for you in this league and on a regular basis. Might not be tonight, might be Saturday, but at some point, we need to balance that out. We need some guys to get going here a little bit. At least find their opportunities and eventually they'll go in. But I'm not sure they're even finding opportunities yet, so that's step one that we're still chasing."
So far, the experiment of placing Brett Ritchie in a top-six role next to David Krejci and Jake DeBrusk has failed to manifest into anything productive. During the 42:43 of 5v5 TOI in which Krejci and Ritchie have skated together (in a top-six role, don't forget), the Bruins have been outshot, 22-20, and have only scored one 5v5 goal. That kind of production is not good enough for a second line anchored by Krejci, especially when you consider that over 58% of Krejci + Ritchie's faceoffs have come in the offensive zone.
As was the case for most of last season, the Bruins need to get a viable winger to put on Krejci's right. The veteran pivot has actually been pretty strong this season (21 points in 27 games), but it's been rather evident that Ritchie is not the right fit on that line.
But even Charlie Coyle has seemingly hit a wall as of late, with the forward failing to get on the scoresheet at all during this five-game stretch.
While a trio of Bjork-Coyle-Heinen was a bright spot in Boston's bottom-six earlier this season, such hasn't been the case of late — with the Bruins out-attempted, 20-11, and limited to one high-danger scoring chance and zero goals in the last 17:55 of 5v5 ice time for that line (a stretch of three games).
Boston's options to slot some other bodies into that middle-six are a bit limited with Karson Kuhlman and Zach Senyshyn on the mend, but one has to think that the Bruins could be looking to switch things up soon — if Thursday's lineup shuffling was any indication.
There are plenty of other areas worth nit-picking when it comes to this club, but the case remains: If Boston had been able to capitalize at least once or twice on the power play — or received a lift from Coyle or Krejci's lines — there's a good chance Boston would be back in the win column, taking valuable points away from the likes of the Capitals and Lightning.
Still, for as much as things look bleak in the present moment, the Bruins aren't panicking — at least not yet.
"I don’t sense too much frustration," Tuukka Rask said. "It sucks to lose, we hate to lose here. But we’ve played decent. You’re not going to win ‘em all. You’re not gonna go 80-3 or whatever Ritchie said."
"You’ve got to take positives from every game," Charlie McAvoy added. "Even when you’re winning, you can’t sit there and start to become complacent or start to have this false belief that maybe you’re better than you are. I think we know the kind of team we are in here. We know that we’re a special group. ... As frustrating as it is, it's just a handful of games in December, so a little bit of perspective goes a long way, but at the same time, we want to win, we’re competitive and no one is really happy in here."
Stats and graphs via Natural Stat Trick.