While it hasn’t been a full-scale power play explosion this week for the Boston Bruins, there is no denying that the last bastion of their wayward special teams’ work is finally coming on line for the Black and Gold.
The Bruins didn’t register any power play goals in the midweek road win over the Blackhawks, but they picked up power play strikes in both home wins this week against the Red Wings and Saturday’s 4-3 overtime victory over the Philadelphia Flyers at TD Garden.
Interestingly enough in both cases, it was the second PP unit that did the deed with Justin Brazeau scoring a game-tying third-period goal against the Red Wings, and Trent Frederic scoring one of his two goals in Saturday afternoon’s matinee victory over the Broad Street Bullies. On the one hand, it means the Bruins still have nothing to go but upward as their top power-play unit is waiting to explode, but on the other, there has also been good puck movement and scoring chances for both PP units.
That means the Bruins haven’t been losing any momentum during power play opportunities whether they ultimately score or not, and that is something Joe Sacco has stressed since taking over as the interim head coach.
A big part of the power play getting back online for the Black and Gold has been funneling pucks to the net, and focusing on quantity over quality when it comes to shooting opportunities. That has allowed the Bruins to create more chaos in the offensive zone for other teams’ penalty kills, and that was evident in today’s goal as Frederic scored on a backhanded shovel at the net after an initial Mason Lohrei point blast was blocked in front.
“The unpredictability part comes from more shots,” said Sacco. “I’ve said this before, it’s not just shooting for the sake of shooting, but the unpredictability comes when you break down a PK. When you shoot more, the rebounds come out, and there’s chaos in front of the net. The defensive team is trying to sort out their coverage, and they’re collapsing. It creates chaos, and that’s where we, as a power play, can start to find some openings, hopefully.”
It also helps if the Bruins earn themselves multiple looks on the power play as they did on Saturday afternoon with six power play chances versus the two PP opportunities for the Flyers. It seems as if John Tortorella took issue with some of those calls, though most of them were legit with Flyers players like Cam York lazily tripping and using stick-work when he wasn’t able to recover and skate stride-for-stride with an attacking player.
“That’s one of the things we talk most about. We have to play an honest game. There’s not cheating and ‘no embarrassing the referees,” said Tortorella, who was pretty much describing the embellishment and play-acting that the Red Wings were engaged in at the Garden trying to draw penalty calls earlier this week. “The (stuff) that went on here tonight was just ridiculous. I’m proud of the way our team played.
“Did we piss another one away? Yeah, but other people had a little bit to do with that also.”
The final mission for the Black and Gold now that the penalty kill is humming along, and the second PP unit has shown signs of life, is to get the top unit with Charlie McAvoy, David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, Pavel Zacha and Elias Lindholm chugging along with goals to go along with good puck movement, solid zone entries and adequate pressure.
Once that starts happening the Bruins will truly be cooking again special teams-wise after the odd opening 20 game stretch of futility where it looked like the B’s had zero idea how to get any of their special teams’ groups untracked.
Those days seem like a long time ago indeed for a Black and Gold group that keeps trying to push up the rankings but has a long way to go while still tied with the NY Islanders for dead-last in the NHL with a grotesque 11.8 percent success rate on the man advantage.
ONE-TIMERS
*Always interesting to speak with Nikita Zadorov, who consistently tells it like it is without pulling punches or trying to paint things in an overly positive light. While many Bruins players spoke of failing Jim Montgomery in the wake of his firing a couple of weeks ago, Zadorov said what everybody else has seen with their eyeballs over the last month.
The Bruins were a disjoined, disconnected hockey team under Monty’s leadership this season and things have most definitely changed while the B’s have gone 7-2-0 in nine games under Joe Sacco with greater attention to detail and a much more connected game team wide.
“I think we're playing with the passion, playing with pride, and I think we're playing for each other,” admitted Zadorov after a divisional win over the Red Wings earlier this week. “I thought we were disconnected before.”
*Interesting times in Chicago as Luke Richardson was fired as head coach with the Blackhawks struggling despite a veteran core group and wunderkind Connor Bedard, who has powered through a so-so sophomore NHL season.
Anders Sorensen is the first Swedish-born head coach in NHL history taking over on an interim basis with a big job ahead of him with a Blackhawks group that has toiled for years now.
The final straw for Richardson was actually the loss to the Bruins earlier this week when the Hawks took a rough too many men on the ice penalty while trying to pull the goalie at the end of the third period. Needless to say, that squashed any third-period comeback hopes for Chicago and buried any hopes Richardson had of making it through the holidays as the Blackhawks bench boss.
Needless to say, the Blackhawks players understand that things must get turned around just as any NHL dressing room full of players must know after their coach walks the plank.
“We’ve had one practice,” said Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno. “We obviously understand the urgency. It’s just not going to turn around in one day. He wants us to be a real tenacious go-ahead team. You could see that tonight when we were playing on our toes.”
