There is little doubt that the Boston Bruins have reversed much of the bad early season mojo with the encouraging way they have played in the last 10 games since changing out their head coach.
But a humbling, revealing 8-1 blowout loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night at the Canada Life Centre was a reminder that the Black and Gold still have a long way to go before anybody is going to view them as a legit threat to make a Stanley Cup run. Instead, they look like pretenders rather than contenders, and that’s a tough pill to swallow for Boston sports fans.
“[Winnipeg] played well tonight and they certainly earned the two points. We didn’t,” said Joe Sacco. “They were just a better team tonight, I thought, from pretty much from start to finish. The penalties got us into a little bit of trouble tonight, but overall just not the start of the road trip we wanted.”
The B’s admittedly did a good job of beating up on also-rans and other playoff pretenders over the last couple of weeks, and that’s to be commended because winning is never easy at the NHL level. But the lingering million-dollar question was how they would look against a legit quality team after suffering embarrassing road blowout losses to the Carolina Hurricanes and Dallas Stars earlier this season.
Welp, clearly they still have a lot of work to do as a 3-1 game at the end of 40 minutes totally spiraled away from the Bruins with five unanswered goals allowed in the third period, a segment that included Trent Frederic, Mark Kastelic and Nikita Zadorov all dropping the gloves and showing some fight as Boston circled the drain to embarrassing defeat.
WE GOT CHAOS IN WINNIPEG 🥊
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 11, 2024
- It took Trent Frederic ONE punch to drop David Gustafsson
- Kastelic and Stanley have a spirited tilt
- Heavyweight square-off between Zadorov and Lowry pic.twitter.com/Ad7VC9N9Qn
That was really the only positive as the same old questions bubble up for the B’s as to how exactly we should be viewing this Black and Gold hockey group that has looked better but is currently sporting a 5-9-0 record in 14 games (32 goals for, 56 goals against for a minus-24 goal differential) against current teams within the playoff structure. Those kinds of numbers scream out “first-round exit” in the playoffs if they can even make it that far, and that is something that these Bruins need to keep working on as they aspire to be a tougher team to play against versus the NHL’s iron.
At the tail end of their just concluded, season-high four game-winning streak and a strong 7-2-0 stretch under interim head coach Joe Sacco, Boston’s captain characterized this was a wakeup call that was needed after some “meh” recent practices before the long road swing.
“This was coming,” admitted Bruins captain Brad Marchand. “Our practices have been sloppy, our execution has been off there, and it bleeds into games. The way you practice is how you play, it starts there, and we haven’t been good enough. So, we need to do a better job at being good in practice and that will translate to games.
“(The Jets) were very good. They were good and we were not good. We weren't executing. We were lost in our coverage, and we were lost in our battles. So yeah, they were good, they made plays, but we did not have a good game.”
Perhaps the most concerning thing about Tuesday’s loss, in particular, was how dominant Winnipeg’s center play was against the Bruins. Mark Scheifele was the other big name, aside from Elias Lindholm, that was tossed around as a possible solution for the Bruins center problems of a couple of years ago when both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci skated into retirement.
Scheifele ended up signing a long-term contract to stick with the Jets and Lindholm eventually found his way to Boston in free agency after a trade detour to the Vancouver Canucks last season. But the difference was stark between the two players on Tuesday night as one was rolling offensively while the other couldn’t finish off perfect dishes in the slot from linemate Marchand.
Scheifele was electric in the Winnipeg victory with a two-goal, three-point performance where he was creating with speed and precision every time the puck was on his stick and was a dangerous player throughout the game.
Lindholm, on the other hand, struggled in the offense department while several times fumbling scoring chances with the puck, and missed the net with a whopping six shot attempts as making an offensive impact really seems to be a struggle. Even worse Lindholm was torched defensively as he finished a minus-3 and was on the ice for a pair of goals scored by the Scheifele line in a clear example of Winnipeg’s best being far better than Boston’s best throughout the contest.
A bad loss is going to be an inevitable result whenever that is the case, and it’s probably about time, if he is capable, Lindholm begins playing like a guy that could be a No. 1 center for the Boston Bruins. At this point, Lindholm is on pace for eight goals and 36 points this season and has been a minus player for the balance of the season.
All of that needs to improve, otherwise it’s going to be a long seven years in Boston after he signed a $54 million plus contract this summer to be that guy.
The Bruins deserve credit for turning around their defensive play and improving their special teams play over the last 10 games, and most nights they’ve made it difficult for their opponents.
That all fell by the wayside as they couldn’t find a way to contain Scheifele and Kyle Connor for most of last evening, and that turned into humiliation in the third period.
“We made it an easy night for them, and they had it their way,” said Jeremy Swayman, who allowed a career-high eight goals in defeat. “Most of it we gave it to them and that’s good for us to recognize. We need to get to work on fixing things. It’s a long road trip so we need to regroup quick.”
The bottom line is that this current Western Canada/West Coast road trip is going to reveal whether the Bruins are contenders or pretenders right now, and the massive opening misstep in Winnipeg was far from a harbinger of good things to come.