NEW YORK — Thursday’s disheartening defeat on Long Island should be terrifying for the Bruins in more ways than one.
Yes, Boston once again sleepwalking through a winnable contest and letting yet another team push back in the second and third periods is already concerning enough. Yes, scoring just four goals in their last four games is cause for concern, to put it lightly.
But for the Bruins to lose to THIS Islanders team has to be like Scrooge getting dangled by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. They essentially got smoked by a team that is already mired in the dreary future that could await the B's very, very soon.
Fair to say, this middling New York team presents a pretty stark and ominous vision of what this Bruins team could look like if the wheels fully fall off. And to lose to them in regulation likely won’t assuage those fears that the Bruins are nearing the end of this window faster than most expected.
Despite entering the 2021-22 season with high expectations after making it to the Conference Finals in each of the last two seasons, everything that could have gone wrong has for Barry Trotz’s club over the last few months.
Be it COVID outbreaks, untimely injuries or regression among a number of key contributors, the Isles have gone from a club poised to contend to a squad that is staring at a sell-off in the next couple of weeks.
And with 11 players aged 30 and above, it remains to be seen how Lou Lamoriello retools this roster on the fly, especially if assets like Scott Mayfield and others are sent packing in the next couple of weeks.
But for as much as the Isles seem poised to take a step back this season (and potentially in the years ahead), some of the hallmarks that allowed this New York roster to grind out many fruitful playoff pushes have remained intact, even if the on-ice returns have left a lot to be desired.
"I don't care what their record is. This team has had a lot of success, especially in their building," Taylor Hall said on Thursday night. "They're going to play hard, they're going to get pucks to the net and get greasy goals. That's how they play and that's what they did to us tonight. … It's a tough matchup and we have to realize that and know that it's going to be a very hard game from start to finish. And I don't know if we rolled over the lines like we could tonight, and we left a couple of points on the table for sure.”
Oftentimes, when we compare and contrast Boston’s strengths and shortcomings with some other NHL clubs, we tend to focus most of our efforts on teams that have mapped out the best practices and proper roster-building techniques that have led to sustained success, such as the Lightning.
But if you ask both Hall and Bruce Cassidy, there was a lot that even this pedestrian Islanders club does well that the Bruins need to follow suit with if they have any hopes of turning things around this season.
Shots with purpose
If you’ve been reading my stuff here for some time, you had to know this flaw was going to be dissected once again.
Yes, at even-strength play, the Bruins boast the third-highest shots per 60 minutes rate at 34.8. But if you look at their expected goals rate per 60 minutes of even-strength action, Boston dips all the way down to 15th overall at 2.66. And when you factor in the most important stat — actual goals scored at even-strength play — Boston is 24th overall at 2.41 per 60 minutes.
As expected, those shortcomings are a potent mix of both not generating nearly enough high-quality chances among that salvo of shots, or overthinking O-zone sequences when sometimes a quick wrister from the slot would suffice.
For Cassidy, a prime example of Boston turning down a quality chance came during their second futile power-play attempt on Thursday night. While Charlie Coyle recovered a puck down low and fed a quick pass over to David Pastrnak, Boston’s top sniper opted for an extra feed instead of snapping the offering toward Ilya Sorokin. Sure enough, Pastrnak’s pass out to the bumper led to a whole bunch of nothing. Even if Pastrnak’s initial shot was turned aside by Sorokin, a rebound forming in the scrum at the crease sure beats the play Pastrnak was looking for.
“Shot selection — I think Coyle made a hell of a play on that second power play,” Cassidy said. “Pasta through the seam and Pasta's going down backdoor — like, he's got a really good look. He stayed wide and then made another an extra pass. And I think that's where David, he's a goal scorer.
"Put it in your hands and take your chances shooting it, and a rebound might be generated. Again, goals like that against a team like New York that prides itself (defensively). It's what you need to do. It's not going to be all off the rush, tic-tac-toe. Like I said, I thought we'd let some shooting opportunities get away on the power play."
At this point, the shot volume has been there for the Bruins through most of this season. But when it matters most, Boston is either squeezing their sticks and searching (usually in vain) for a perfect opportunity, or not doing nearly enough to uncork these shots in high-danger ice.
It’s a perplexing (and extremely frustrating) conundrum.
"You got to keep shooting, you got to keep attacking and hope that the floodgates open for us,” Hall said. “It's been tough sledding scoring, obviously. And that doesn't mean that you shoot less.
"It means you shoot more and try and attack more and create second chances, which at times tonight I thought we did. And it was just the other end of the rink that we couldn't get out of our zone. Us forwards, we got to do a better job of being better on the wall, getting pucks out and playing in their end and, more of the game instead of making the harder on our D.”
Shots from the blue line
“Shots with purpose” also correlate to more attempts coming from the D corps — a staple of the Isles’ game that has not translated to the Bruins, despite the fact that the B’s feature a number of talented puck-movers like Charlie McAvoy, Matt Grzelcyk and Mike Reilly.
Yes, that trio is effective when it comes to pushing the puck through the neutral zone and activating off the blue line when necessary. But uncorking shots when a shooting lane becomes available? Not so much.
Want a sobering stat? Grzelcyk is currently the leader among Bruins defensemen in 5v5 shots per 60 minutes at 6.18, and that ranks 13th overall on the roster. Right behind him? Brandon Carlo at 6.01 shots per 60 minutes at 5v5 play.
Yes, a stay-at-home defenseman in Carlo is firing off more shots a 5v5 play than guys like Reilly (5.85), Charlie Coyle (5.74) and McAvoy (5.39).
Woof.
That’s not to say that the Bruins blueliners need to just fire a volley of low-danger shots from the high slot. But if the shooting lane is there, they gotta let some pucks fly.
For an Islanders team that seems to generate a number of quality looks by way of greasy goals, a lot of that hinges on their defensemen getting pucks to the net — much as you saw during both Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Noah Dobson’s goals on Thursday night.
“I'll look at their couple of goals, right? They get one on net from the point, a heavy shot, a rebound — even the one that went through at the end is off the post," Cassidy said. "We do need secondary offense from the back end. We need some players that are maybe down in the lineup to kick in some goals here and there in games like these where the so-called guys we rely on weren't having — I actually thought Taylor Hall generated a lot of looks tonight.
"He was skating, got one off the rush. But maybe some down-low plays — as I said, how they scored, slot battle. The pucks have to arrive. And tonight I think there were some shooting opportunities for us we didn't take and try to get those second-chance goals against a good goaltender."
Of course, there are plenty of other issues at play with Boston’s struggles, be it the lack of secondary scoring (a familiar shortcoming) or weak structure in and around the slot in both the offensive and defensive zones.
If the Bruins do indeed plan on righting the ship before this season ends, it’s pretty much a given that more reinforcements need to arrive. But in the meantime, there’s an awful lot of simple corrections that the Bruins can make that can at least get them back on the right track.
It’s been a disastrous season so far, but the Islanders do provide a pretty solid template of what Boston is missing when it comes to their scoring woes.
It’d be in the Bruins' best interest to implement said lessons, lest they want to follow New York’s lead in the coming weeks and join in a late-season yard sale.
But that very well could be the most important lesson after all: Knowing when to fold your hand and admit when it’s time to ship off pieces.
Time will tell.
Stats and graphs via Natural Stat Trick.