You can excuse the Boston Bruins if they wake up this morning feeling like they are trapped in the NHL version of the movie “Groundhog Day.”
In the classic 1990’s flick, Bill Murray is trapped in a loop living the same day over and over again forcing him to learn life lessons from his repeated mistakes. In the hockey reality, the Bruins simply keep repeating the same miscues over and over again while perhaps hoping for some kind of different results.
This time around it was another parade to the penalty box in what’s been a season-long theme for the team, and a special teams collapse where the B’s allowed three power play goals in a 4-0 loss to the Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Center on Tuesday night.
Charlie McAvoy, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand all took offensive zone penalties (McAvoy actually had two of them) in a bit of a Bruins captain hat trick, and Mark Kastelic capped it off with penalty way away from the play in the closing minutes of the third period.
Couple that with a Bruins power play that went 0-for-6 on the evening and had a really difficult time getting the puck cleanly in the zone on entries, and it’s so many recipes of defeat that we’ve seen for the Black and Gold on a season where they are now 6-7-1 with a minus-12 goal differential that’s second worst in the Atlantic Division.
“There were maybe a couple of penalties I think we could have avoided tonight. But in general, I thought we drew a lot of penalties by playing the right way 5-on-5. Just our power play didn’t have the success that theirs did,” said Jim Montgomery. “Our special teams, our numbers are the numbers, right? The players that get the privilege of being either on the penalty kill and the power, along with the coaches, need to be better with our plan and be better with our execution.”
While the B’s did passably well during 5-on-5 play and they did draw their share of penalty calls, the discipline piece is a much bigger issue than Montgomery was willing to address at this point. The vast majority of the calls were offensive zone penalties where the B’s were chasing the puck or reaching rather than moving their feet, and several of them, including a key Nikita Zadorov interference call, were either behind the play or not really necessary to take.
The Bruins continue to lead the NHL by a wide margin with 74 minor penalties taken – a whopping 12 more than the second-place Maple Leafs – and 175 penalty minutes that has been mostly due to minor infractions rather than fighting majors or misconducts. It’s a repeating issue and it’s a reflection on a coaching staff that hasn’t yet convinced the Bruins to correct the mistakes that are landing them in the penalty box at the worst times, and because of things that aren’t exactly goal-saving plays in most instances.
“Honestly, it was a tough loss today, but I feel like we’ve been right there for the most part of the game,” said Pastrnak. “Special teams obviously hurt us today. We didn’t do the job on the power play, and they did.”
And it goes without saying that the special teams’ issues need to reverse themselves. The penalty kill needs to perform at a much higher level as they’ve traditionally done in the past, and the power play was flat-out beaten by a Leafs PP that had been massively underperforming this season.
The Bruins penalty kill is a very mediocre 20th in the NHL killing at a rate of 76.2 percent after traditionally always being in the top-10 on the PK, and only the Blues, Capitals and Sabres have worse power plays statistically than the Black and Gold right now. The Bruins PP is scoring just 13.3 percent of the time and has experienced significant trouble just setting up in the offensive zone.
“I think we had looks. We had some chances. Sooner or later, it’s going to go our way,” said Elias Lindholm. “Obviously it’s frustrating their PP won that game for them and it’s frustrating when our PP can’t win the game for us…yeah, we’ve got to figure this out.”
Montgomery and his Bruins players are correct that the Bruins improved their 5-on-5 play and there’s little doubt that Maple Leafs netminder Anthony Stolarz played a role in the loss with a brilliant 29-save performance. He made a number of excellent stops, including one on Pastrnak attempting to go between his legs on an interior net drive when the game was much still in play for both teams.
Anthony Stolarz has his first @pepsi shutout as a member of the @MapleLeafs! 👏 pic.twitter.com/GdclUOBHqs
— NHL (@NHL) November 6, 2024
But the bottom line is that the Bruins faltered against a quality team – and showed many of the same flaws – after beating a very limited Flyers group and a road-weary Seattle team over the weekend. The way in which they lost to the Leafs should continue to keep the Bruins coaching staff on a seat that’s been getting hotter all season, and now there are even whispers floating around that somebody like Trent Frederic (one goal and a minus-8 in 14 games this season) could be discussed in trade talks if things don’t improve for the Bruins.
In speaking to sources, several teams are interested in pending UFA (after this season) @NHLBruins Frederic. With his size, speed, toughness, character and skill - he’s drawing attention in the marketplace.#NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/zzM7yqLyW2
— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) November 5, 2024
The Bruins are trying to focus on the positive, but seven regulation losses in the first week of November is not a great harbinger of things to come for the Black and Gold.
“Our group is fine. We feel we’re getting better. Our habits and details are growing,” said Montgomery. “You don’t like losing 4-0, but they got three power-play goals. So we look at our 5-on-5 game, and we don’t think we’re giving up that much. Offensively we’re starting to build. We don’t get the offensive zone time that we’d like to have, but that’s a work in progress.”
Are the Bruins really fine right now?
That’s the question that Bruins decision-makers will have to decide at some point soon as a shutout loss to the rival Maple Leafs did little to quell the unrest and problems that have seemingly surrounded this team all season.