Another game, another performance you’d rather forget from the Boston Bruins.
Game 82 can’t come soon enough.
First Period
Actually, not much happened.
Mark Stone tripped Johnny Beecher, and the B’s couldn’t capitalize on it, so uh…yeah, let’s move on to the hell periods.
Hell Period the 1st: Dorofeyev brings a great pain on the Bruins fanbase
Pavel Dorofeyev, in case you hadn’t heard, is a really damn good player.
As if to make this point painfully clear, the Bruins had a penalty kill that was truly shambolic, and Dorofeyev was given a clear path to Swayman, and put a wrister home to open the scoring…
…and then finished off the period in the waning minutes by receiving a slick pass from Alex Pietrangelo to wire it past Swayman a second time.
The period ended with Boston down 2-0 after 40 minutes.
Hell Period the 2nd: Crowning Agonies
After having their now leading goalscorer lead the way, other Vegas players decided to prey on Boston’s inadequacies, such as Brett Howden, who was the beneficiary of a 3-on-1, and the prime shooter on another one timer that beat Jeremy Swayman. 3-0…
Pavel Dorofeyev immediately realized he could have a hat trick, and went out and made that dream a reality by taking a bobbled puck on Jeremy Swayman and roofing it on the down-and-out goaltender, sealing his 30th goal of the season in style. The rest of the skaters on Boston could do little but watch. 4-0…
Then Ivan Barbashev and Jack Eichel took their turn victimizing Boston’s stone skates and tired legs, with a 2-on-1 chance that became an atrociously easy score. 5-0…
Mercifully, the Knights were kind enough to surrender a goal to Morgan Geekie in the final 3 minutes of play as David Pastrnak set him up for a golden opportunity. 5-1.
5-1 Golden Knights your final score, Bruins lose.
Game Notes
- The Bruins showed up to this game with about as little energy as you can bring while still actually shooting the puck…at least, for a little while, then they settled into being just another passive participant in this game. It wasn’t just that they were having trouble shooting, that’s somewhat expected at this point, it’s that they were so lifeless while doing it. It made the Knights’ jobs as easy as an NHL game can be.
- The Bruins failed to reach 20 shots on goal for the third game in a row. That’s the first time since they started tracking the stat of “Shots on goal” that the franchise has “achieved” this. They’ve also lost 14 games by 4 or more goals, which has only been matched by the 1965–66 Boston Bruins, who finished their 70 game season with a record of 21-43-6.
- Was Jeremy Swayman bad tonight? Sure! I would call an .884 SV% pretty darn bad, but if there’s any fairness to be extended to him…do you think Korpisalo could do better when A) the other team is just swinging one timers from one side of the ice to the other with near impunity, and B) his own team chose to do next to nothing at all situations across a 60 minute hockey game?
- At this point, I’m all in on checking Tankathon near nightly. If the Bruins want to sell anything, they need to start selling hope.
- David Pastrnak is gonna have 90 something points at the end of this year and he will not make the playoffs. That should be grounds for an ass-kicking.
- The Bruins are currently set to be 9th overall in the draft over if there was no lottery, and Bob McKenzie’s 9th overall prospect eligible for the draft is Jack O’Brien. Here’s some highlights for you.
Boston continues their little western conference road trip against a team that’s been eliminated from the playoffs; the San Jose Sharks. That game drops the puck at 10:30pm EST.
Let’s hope for a better result on Saturday.
See you there.