Ryan: History seems doomed to repeat itself with Bruins if they can't punch back against rolling Tampa

Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins don’t want to talk about 2018 — and for good reason. 

A promising Bruins team that racked up 112 points during the regular season appeared poised for the franchise's first legitimate Cup run in years, with Don Sweeney attempting to put the club over the top by adding veteran All-Star Rick Nash to the mix just ahead of the playoff push.

After conquering the Maple Leafs in a seven-game triumph, Boston carried that momentum into the following round against the Tampa Bay Lightning — with the B's storming into Amalie Arena and handing the Bolts a decisive 6-2 loss in Game 1.

But from there, everything unraveled. In the following four games, Tampa Bay landed haymaker after haymaker against Cassidy's crew — outscoring Boston, 15-7, en route to an eventual series victory over five meetings.

As Tampa clamped down on Boston's top line of Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand, the B's offense was stuck in neutral, especially with an injured Nash unable to provide the necessary scoring punch next to David Krejci. Before the spark Stanley Cup fever could be ignited within the Commonwealth, it was quickly snuffed out.

But a lot has changed since that disheartening series — as Cassidy was quick to point out on Monday afternoon.

Yes, Boston's top forward trio remains a behemoth, but the B's supporting cast has gained invaluable experience since 2018 — a campaign in which the likes of Charlie McAvoy, Jake DeBrusk and Pastrnak were all 21 and under. Add in the lessons learned — both positive and certainly negative — from coming 60 minutes short of a Stanley Cup title, and the 2019-20 Bruins seemed poised to rewrite the script in their next meeting with the other top dog in the Eastern Conference.

"I think both teams have grown since then, some different personnel," Cassidy said of comparing the 2018 Eastern Conference Semifinals with the current rematch in 2020, adding: "The essence that you win the first game you can't get too comfortable, you put it behind you like I said and you worry about the next one. And maybe two years ago we were a little overconfident going into the second game and I don't believe that will be the problem this year."

Yes, both teams might be different from the ones Cassidy and Jon Cooper rolled out two years ago — but so far, it seems as though this series is following an awfully familiar narrative.

In fact, following Wednesday's embarrassing showing in Game 3 up in Toronto, things might be even worse this time around.



Much like Boston, the 2019-20 Lightning are leagues ahead of their 2017-18 counterparts at least on paper. Brayden Point have evolved into one of the premier two-way pivots in the league, Anthony Cirelli should be a legitimate Selke candidate for years to come and the acquisitions of Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and Patrick Maroon give this Tampa team the type of snarl needed to punch your way through the postseason.

Still, a Bruins club — two years old, wiser and more poised in crunch time — has no business being on the wrong end of such a lopsided score as the one displayed up on the Scotiabank Arena scoreboard on Wednesday.

This Bruins club was supposed to finally have secondary scoring with the arrival of Charlie Coyle this February and the resurgence of David Krejci's line this postseason, now with a healthy Ondrej Kase in tow.

And yet, while Boston's big guns are doing what they can to keep the B's in the fight (Make it four goals and five total points for Marchand this series), the Krejci line has been knocked on its rear time and time again against Tampa so far. After combining for five goals and 13 total points during the B's victory over Carolina in the first round, the DeBrusk-Krejci-Kase line has generated one single assist through three games against Tampa — with that lone helper coming from Krejci on a power-play bid.

The optics down the other end of the ice were even worse for a team defense built to withstand whatever salvos the Lightning were expected to launch against Jaroslav Halak in net. Still, despite pacing all NHL clubs in goals against during the regular season at 2.39 per game,  a fatal combination of undisciplined play, structural breakdowns and yes, poor lineup decisions, allowed the Lightning to wallop a Bruins team that could have done us all a favor by not showing up for the final 20 minutes of regulation.

Do the Bruins have a right to be ticked with how the first period ended — with a soft call on Nick Ritchie and a BRUTAL pick by a linesman leading to a pair of Tampa goals in 15 seconds of play? Yes, absolutely. But you know what? S--- happens in this sport. And good teams fight right back.

Rules are rules, but the Bolts also had a right to be awfully pissed after one of their goals was taken off the board via offside review in Game 2, while a late goal from Brad Marchand on Tuesday night could have set the stage for a knockout punch for Tampa in overtime. But the Lightning skated out on the ice in the extra period and socked the Bruins right in the mouth, outshooting Boston, 8-1, in OT and suffocating them in their own zone before Ondrej Palat put the B's out of their misery less than five minutes in to the new frame. 

Good teams find a way to fight back. And on Wednesday, staring at a two-goal deficit coming out of the first intermission, the Bruins imploded.

Perhaps "imploded" isn't strong enough here, as that would imply they were out there on the ice to perform such a destructive performance.

https://twitter.com/TheReplayGuy/status/1298796840637390849

They simply didn't show up — not after Marchand gave them new lift-off of a power-play goal at 4:56 and certainly not after rookie Dan Vladar was pressed into service for his first taste of NHL action. Rather that pack things in and help carry the 23-year-old netminder through his first chance between the pipes, Boston instead left their rookie out to dry — marooning him on an island to face the likes of Point, Alex Killorn and Nikita Kucherov. 

https://twitter.com/TheReplayGuy/status/1298798759707471873

"No excuses, but it’s tough you get behind in this league against a good team, it's hard enough to catch up," Cassidy said. "I just think if you look in the regular season when you're playing three in four back to backs there's not a lot of comebacks, it's going to be especially magnified in the playoffs. But clearly after that, we lost our composure at times and didn't do enough to get back in the game. You kind of got to bear down at the start of the second period, first 10 minutes, and we weren't able to do that."

In May 2018, Patrice Bergeron found himself surrounded by reporters and cameras (remember the good ol' days?) in the visiting locker room at Amalie Arena, minutes after the Bolts sent them packing. Of course, Boston's top-line center was quick to praise Tampa and their effort in the five-game series, but the veteran forward couldn't help but lament what very well could have been one of the last legitimate runs with this B's core.

“We believed that we had a great team," Bergeron said. "It’s very disappointing. We could have done a lot more. We believed that we had a better team.”

Two years later, Boston has managed to prolong its Cup contention window. But given the ages of the pillars of this franchise, coupled with the uncertain future of key cogs like Torey Krug, those fears of Bergeron could very well become reality this summer — especially if this team suffers a similar fate against this Lightning club.

"We didn’t respond," Cassidy said postgame. "Like I said, the disappointing part about that is that we weren’t able to get ourselves back in the game by killing any further penalties or creating offense or having our push back. That’s what we lacked tonight for whatever reason. But it’s over. We’re going to focus on Game 4. Seven to one, 2-1, a loss is a loss. They’re up 2-1. I know we have a good group in there. They’re resilient. We’ll lick our wounds tomorrow, get away from the rink and get ready for Game 4."