Bruce Cassidy takes Bruins to task after many 'didn’t break a sweat' during Tuesday's loss

Bruce Cassidy struggled to draw the positives from Tuesday night. 

The Bruins’ fourth line has been a work-in-progress throughout the 2019-20 campaign, with Cassidy and his staff constantly re-shuffling the deck in an effort to rekindle the production that Boston’s checking group generated last season. 

But a combination of Sean Kuraly, Chris Wagner and Par Lindholm managed to click on Tuesday against the Flames. Wagner tallied his second goal in as many games — with a frantic forecheck from that trio sparking a late-game push in what was ultimately a 5-2 defeat for the B's. 

“They were our best line in terms of finding pucks and getting it through the neutral zone,” Cassidy noted.

But beyond the contributions of Boston’s scrappers at the bottom of the lineup, Cassidy didn’t have much else to praise in what stood as Boston’s second straight regulation loss — a “rut” that Boston hasn’t found itself in since losing back-to-back road contests to the Capitals and Lightning on Dec. 11-12. 

On a night that should have showcased some of the promise Don Sweeney discussed after beefing up Boston's middle-six unit via trades — both David Krejci and Charlie Coyle's lines found themselves completely toothless against Calgary.



"Clearly not good enough," Cassidy said of Boston's effort following the defeat. "I thought some guys came to play and some guys didn’t. Didn’t break a sweat, some of them it looked like. I’m sure there was effort, they were trying, they were just in between, couldn’t execute or whatever. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t good enough."

The first name, fair or not, that draws attention following a loss such as this is Boston's latest pick-up in power forward Nick Ritchie. The 6-foot-2, 230-pound winger might have been as advertised in terms of throwing his weight around (seven hits in 14:17 of ice time), but Ritchie's role on this team is to be more than just a heat-seeking missle — especially for a B's roster in need of some quality shots from Grade-A ice during 5v5 play.

Those shots didn't manifest on Tuesday, with Ritchie failing to land a puck on net against David Rittich and the Flames.

"I thought he was fine," Cassidy said of Ritchie. "I’m not going to judge him on a — he flew in here yesterday. He’s trying to get acclimated. There has to be a decent amount of period before we see what we got, and then go from there. I’d rather not, I’d rather watch some tape and see if, did he finish checks, did he get inside?

"Some of the details he’s going to bring to us. Rather look at the whole group, and we just did not have our — the guys we rely on to play, play well, had a tougher time tonight. And it kind of showed up in the end. "

As Cassidy stated, it'd be unwise to bury Ritchie after just one game in a black and gold sweater — especially given the play from some of the mainstays in the lineup on Tuesday.

While Ritchie found himself pulled this way and that across Boston's lineup, the duo of Charlie Coyle and Anders Bjork lost plenty of traction on the third line. The case could be made that Coyle's crew has been Boston's best forward grouping since the bye week — with a combination of Bjork, Coyle and Karson Kuhlman generating an impressive 77.14% shot share in 20:15 of 5v5 ice time together.

But in the 9:07 of 5v5 TOI that Coyle and Bjork logged together on Tuesday, the Flames often tilted the ice in their favor, lighting the lamp once and out-shooting Boston, 6-1, during that stretch. Both Coyle and Bjork joined Ritchie in failing to land a single shot on goal against Calgary.

"I didn’t see much energy, much offense, much willingness to recover pucks," Cassidy said. "The Coyle line had a rare off night. They were just fighting it."

Of course, the Coyle line can't be expected to be an O-zone buzzsaw on every single shift, but a sluggish second line failed to provide much support for a Bruins' offense left sputtering for most of the night.

Krejci and Jake DeBrusk failed to generate much of anything in their 6:51 of 5v5 ice time together, but this no-show effort stretches far beyond Tuesday's defeat. As DeBrusk goes, so goes the consistent 5v5 production of that unit — not exactly a comforting thought given how hot-and-cold DeBrusk can get in the offensive zone.

Unfortunately for Boston, DeBrusk has chilled down one of the club's top-six units over the last couple of weeks — failing to generate a single point over his last eight games.

It's even worse than the goose eggs on the stat sheet, as @Bruins_Stats notes below:

https://twitter.com/bruins_stats/status/1232476199806480390

The injection of Ondrej Kase should help alleviate some of that line's scoring woes, but the new B's winger won't be able to pepper the net as if DeBrusk and Krejci continue to regularly cough up pucks in the offensive zone.

All things considered, the Bruins are still more than keeping afloat in the Atlantic Division — even with Tuesday's loss. Boston still sits five points clear of Tampa Bay for the best record in the NHL — and have still won 11 of their last 14 games. 

Still, for as important as it is to keep things in perspective during the growing pains that sprout up after every deadline day, the Bruins aren't going to chalk that up as an excuse for what they put out on the ice on Tuesday.

"You try not to accept it," Wagner said. "We talked about it after the first and the second (periods). You don't expect to lose a game. Sometimes it's gonna happen. But we've got another one on Thursday to bounce back."