Bruce Cassidy kept things brief in his postgame presser at Wells Fargo Center.
Like many in Boston’s dressing room, the B’s bench boss would likely want to burn the tape from Monday’s 6-5 shootout loss to the Flyers.
A road matchup against Columbus the following night stands as the lone form of solace, as the Bruins will look to turn the page on a night in which they held a three-goal lead midway through the second period.
“Good for Philly, for going to the net and sticking around and getting inside,” Cassidy said postgame. “That's what they did at the end and we weren't able to move them out of there and had no will to move them out of there."
Cassidy only spoke for a little over a minute before the media scrum ended and the Bruins focused their attention toward the Blue Jackets.
Based on how Monday’s game progressed through the opening 30 minutes, one had to think Cassidy might have held court for 10 minutes had things gone Boston's way — waxing poetic about one of the team’s most encouraging performances in quite some time.
For the first period and a half, a re-energized B’s club was on pace to extend its winning streak to four consecutive games. To the relief of many in the organization, Boston didn’t build itself a 5-2 lead off of the same, tired script.
Rather than rely on the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line and a potent power play to land most of the punches against Philly, Boston’s middle-six units finally broke through.
An already red-hot Jake DeBrusk (seven points in four games) did much more than cash in down low, setting up a pair of goals by forcing turnovers both in the neutral zone and behind the Flyers' net.
As DeBrusk continued to adhere to the finer defensive details in his game, Anders Bjork put together his finest outing as the B’s latest solution to a top-six winger —tallying a goal in the first off a strong drive to the net while setting up center David Krejci for a tally in the following period.
Boston’s third line also showed signs of life, headlined by Danton Heinen’s second multi-point performance in four games. Add in a milestone night for Zdeno Chara in his 1,000th career game as a Bruin, David Pastrnak’s absurd 36th goal of the year and countless other details, and Cassidy shouldn’t have had all that much to complain about in Philly.
But those positive steps forward fell to the wayside in short order thanks to a putrid defensive effort over the second half of Monday's matchup.
You can't chalk up Boston's defensive collapse to any one player or specific play. Rather, as has been the case multiple times this season, the Bruins made things hard on themselves with two points well within their grasp.
As Boston collectively took its foot off the gas in the second, a Flyers bunch that had only won two of its last eight games was more than willing to claw back into the contest. Jaroslav Halak, posting a sub-optimal .900 save percentage in his last nine starts, let a soft goal slip through his five-hole at 13:12 in the second — with Sean Couturier lofting a changeup toward the netminder after driving with ease to the B's crease.
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As is the case in most games when the momentum shifts from one club to another, Philly also benefitted from a fortunate bounce to cut Boston's deficit to one. Just 1:34 after Couturier lit the lamp, Connor Bunnaman's shot bounced off of both Matt Grzelcyk and John Moore's shins before eventually sailing into twine.
It might have been a bad break for Boston, but as Cassidy was quick to note in his short postgame scrum, there was no excuse for the train wreck that ensued during the Flyers' 4v4 equalizer with 7:02 left in regulation.
I mean — what was the worst part of this 32-car pileup?
- Philippe Myers crossing the B's blue line with ease against Charlie Coyle, Matt Grzelcyk and Brandon Carlo?
- Carlo (6-foot-5, 212 pounds) losing a puck battle behind the net against Travis Sanheim (6-foot-3, 181 pounds)?
- Grzelcyk attempting to clear the puck laterally — subsequently hitting Halak and generating a rebound chance for Sanheim?
- Charlie Coyle and the rest of Boston's forwards being nowhere to be found at the netfront?