The battle to get inside Tampa's imposing defense will decide how much longer this Bruins season will last

When it comes to crafting a potential eulogy for the 2019-20 Boston Bruins, there are a number of directions we could go as to explaining how a season with so much promise now stands on the brink of collapse.

Of course, the loss of Tuukka Rask looms large over this second-round series against the Lightning, while Boston's usually taut defensive structure has either been stretched thin or caught napping against a rolling Bolts roster.

But even if Halak, or Rask, for that matter, were standing on their heads during this series, Boston very well could be in same unenviable spot it's in today, given the Bruins' struggles to generate much of anything down the other end of the ice.

Yes, in terms of matchups between the pipes, Tampa has the edge over Boston and Jaroslav Halak with the reigning Vezina Trophy winner in Andrei Vasilevskiy — who has stopped 102 of the 110 shots that have come his way so far in this series (.927 save percentage).

But it's not like the Bruins have made life particularly hard for Vasilevskiy through four games as well.



So far through four playoff bouts against Tampa, the Bruins have only tallied a whopping four goals during 5v5 play — a far cry from the 11 5v5 tallies Tampa has buried during that same stretch against Halak and Vladar. To the surprise of very few, all four of Boston's goals during this extended stretch were generated from high-danger, Grade-A ice right around Tampa's crease.

No surprise there. But, in what has been a concerning trend throughout this second round, those quality chances have been few and far between for a Bruins club desperately trying to keep its season afloat.



Through four games now, the Lightning have held an imposing 40-24 edge in high-danger scoring chances at 5v5 play — a testament to both Boston's stubbornness in the offensive zone and more prominently — the efforts of an imposing Tampa defense to keep the B's big guns to the outside and away from the quality areas where tips, rebounds and Grade-A attempts are born.

"They’re very good – their defensemen are good one on one," Cassidy said of Boston's struggles with getting inside against Vasilevskiy this series. "If you notice, it’s been tough to get around them. I think Pasta did the other day, drew a penalty. (Chris Wagner) for a second. In general, they’re good one-on-one defenders. Some of that is their gap, some of that is their size, good sticks. They reload well with their forward group. You have to be moving which helps the D keep their gap, knowing the forwards are coming back to help. Protecting the middle of the ice better, they’re making you work to get inside.

"They’re chipping you every time you play behind them. They get a piece of you. And then they’ve got numbers at the puck to breakout. That’s where the forecheck, when you can’t get through them and play behind them, has to be better for us. A little more structure in that area and create some turnovers from there. It comes down to some will. You have to out-will the guy across from you at times. You saw that with our tying goal if you remember back to game two. We had a lot of will around the front of their net, recovered a puck two or three times and eventually made plays. That’s part of it as well."

It may not be pretty — and much more painful — but the Bruins need to make a concerted effort at pushing skaters forward and driving to the net against Andrei Vasilevskiy, much like Karson Kuhlman did on this drive to the net in Game 4 on Saturday afternoon. It ended with Kuhlman getting trucked by Luke Schenn in the blue paint, but the subsequent scramble represented one of Boston's best chances against Tampa's netminder.