On a rare off night for Swayman, Bruins’ porous defense presents greater cause for concern

Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins found themselves in an unfamiliar spot on Wednesday night.

Sure, they've lost games before — plenty of times. And they’ve lost them in just about every fashion imaginable.

The blowout. The nail-biter. The dreaded “moral* victory. Overtime, shootout — you name it.  

But rarely have the B’s found themselves on the wrong side of such a lopsided scoreboard with Jeremy Swayman entrenched in net.

Indeed, the 22-year-old rookie is permeable against NHL competition — with five of the 24 total shots that the Flyers fired off against Swayman sailing into twine during Wednesday’s 6-3 loss in Philly.  

While there are obviously multiple factors that contribute to the final product in net, there was no sugar-coating this one. Swayman, for the first time in a long time, was mortal between the pipes on Broad Street.

"Yeah, he's not gonna be perfect every night,” Cassidy said of Swayman. “Clearly wasn't tonight. Not his best. We needed some saves there when we broke down. That's it. Just didn't give us when we needed them.” 

Much as we discussed this afternoon regarding the short-sighted notion that a goalie controversy was already brewing on this roster — the most rational course to take following a performance like this is to not overreact.

What, Bruins fans — overreact? We kid, we kid. 

Just like how we aren’t heading down to the doomsday bunkers off of a few subpar preseason outings from Linus Ullmark, Bruins fans shouldn’t now think that Swayman’s rookie campaign is doomed to follow the trajectory of a Carter Hart based off a poor start.

More than anything, a stinker like this might serve as a much-needed reality check for all parties.  

Swayman is a great, young talent — already poised beyond his years. But even the best netminders at this level are prone to nights that make them want to burn the game tape and toss a few milk crates around.

As other-worldly as Swayman has been during his brief time up in the pro ranks, a game like tonight was to be expected for Cassidy and his staff at some point. 

But what Cassidy and Co. weren’t expecting was what played out in front of Swayman for most of the evening. 

Swayman wasn’t sharp — but a D corps in front of him featuring reshuffled pairings and new faces drew even more consternation from Boston's bench boss. 

“Our breakdowns were  bad in front of (Swayman),” Cassidy said. “Wasn't a lot of quantity, but high quality. Just mistakes from the back end — it's losing hockey, is what is. It's how you lose games. You do dumb things and the good teams come back at you and they finish and that's what happened.”

Looking to land punches against Philly’s top line of Giroux-Couturier-Konecny, Cassidy opted to reunite Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk and kept them with the Bergeron line for most of the night. 

The results were what you’d expect. 

During the 16:31 of 5v5 ice time in which Grzelcyk and McAvoy skated together, the Bruins outscored Philly, 2-0, and held a 15-5 edge in scoring chances. 

Overloading that top pairing created a 5v5 buzzsaw, no doubt. But the reshuffled second and third D pairs created a similar 5v5 impact — albeit in favor of the Flyers.

With Grzelcyk moved up to the top pair, that meant that UFA pickup Derek Forbort was going to earn a steady dose of minutes with another blueliner with some thump in Connor Clifton. It didn’t go well. In just 10:00 minutes of 5v5 ice time, the Forbort-Clifton pairing was on the ice for a pair of Flyers goals, with Cam Atkinson’s first tally of the evening made possible due to an ill-timed pinch from a guy who shouldn’t be moving off the blue paint in Forbort. 

Cassidy and the Bruins have an effective trump card that they can play whenever they want to roll out Grzelcyk-McAvoy to sic on the competition. But that lineup tweak only becomes a useful option if the subsequent shuffle further down on the depth chart can stand tall. 

Perhaps the more concerning takeaway beyond Forbort-Clifton’s poor debut was the performance of a pair that has logged reps before in Mike Reilly and Brandon Carlo. 

For as much as the Bruins have usually reaped the benefits of Reilly’s transition prowess and playmaking ability (especially at 5v5 action), his skill set also invites plenty of risk — and the potential for some ugly Jekyll-and-Hyde performances.

The Bruins received the latter on Wednesday, with a neutral-zone turnover from Reilly leading to another odd-man rush and Atkinson’s second goal just 58 seconds into the third — giving the Flyers the lead for good.

Another neutral-zone whiff from Reilly created further havoc later in the third, with Couturier corralling the puck and breaking into Boston’s zone. Just seconds later, Konecny rifled home Philly’s fifth goal of the evening. 

"(Reilly’s) a puck mover — you got to give him the freedom to make plays. And then hope he does, right? … We force a play  — it's in our net,” Cassidy said. “A pinch early, it's in our net. Two-on-ones, just, like I said — plays like that hurt us big time tonight, because we didn't get the save as well coming back the other way. And that was the difference in the game. They took advantage of the opportunities that I think we presented to them.”

One blowout loss — especially in the third week of October — should be viewed more as a blip than an omen of more lopsided scores on the horizon.

Swayman will want a number of those shots back, no doubt. But it’d be unwise to bet against him the next time he gets the call in net. 

That is, unless the B’s D corps offers up a similar unsightly encore performance.