After winning 3 straight against subpar opponents, the Bruins have faltered against a pair of quality teams. They mounted a nice comeback Saturday night to salvage a point against the Kings, but still found themselves down 3-0. That happened again last night, except for the comeback part.
I hate Claude Julien and his "style" of play. He's too static, and that can be seen on the ice. The players don't react and independently adapt to what the opposition does. The Lightning owned the neutral zone with their 1-3-1 alignment, and the Bruins did little to change that.
Under Julien, the Bruins struggle whenever their opponents do anything that isn't standard.
And the Lightning didn't do much standard last night. They're fast, aggressive, deceptive, and always moving forward. I don't recall seeing a Lightning defenseman gather the puck in his zone, wait behind his net for a change, pass to the other defenseman, and continue with a basic A-B-C breakout. Instead, they skated. They pushed.
Rask got another hard luck loss. And while the defensive play of the Bruins was unfortunate, their lack of offense was the real killer. The box score credits the Bruins with 27 shots. I don't remember about 20 of them.
Thankfully, the Bruins will be in Miami Wednesday night to play the lowly Panthers. The B's crushed them 4-0 last week.
Photo Credit:
AP Photo
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