Brad Marchand scores on the penalty shot, but the Bruins can’t capitalize as Philipp Grubauer made 33 saves in a 5-1 Loss.
I think we can call that New Coach bump good and dead now.
1st Period
Things didn’t start great for Boston, as an ill-timed double minor to Jamie Oleksiak by David Pastrnak got the Bruins on the Penalty Kill early, and the Kraken capitalized near instantly with Oliver Bjorkstrand tipping a puck in past Joonas Korpisalo after getting position on Nikita Zadorov and Brandon Carlo. 1-0 Seattle.
Then, as if to make sure you weren’t having any fun; Jaden Schwartz got off a crazy backhand shot and put the Kraken up 2-0 less than 7 minutes into the period.
Sheesh, guys.
The period ended 2-0 as Boston began to pile on shots, but couldn’t crack Philipp Grubauer.
2nd Period
Much of the latter half of the first applied to this period; the Bruins began to hammer the net with shots, and Grubauer managed to send them all away. Then, Brad Marchand drew a penalty shot, and he made good on it with a wonderful five hole feed that followed Grubauer into the net! 2-1 Kraken.
That would, however, end the scoring for the night for Boston, and we have unfortunately far more to discuss.
3rd Period
The period began the pain early with the Kraken in transition, with a McCann blast from the middle of the ice creating a huge rebound that Vince Dunn was able to bat into the net. 3-1 Kraken.
Then, about midway through the period; Parker Wotherspoon got stripped of the puck by Eeli Tolvanen, who gave Shane Wright the time he needed to set up Oliver Bjorkstrand for his 2nd goal of the night. 4-1 Kraken.
The B’s pulled Korpisalo…
To predictable results to anyone who wasn’t a major watcher of Kraken games. Seriously, it’s only been very recently that Seattle has been able to do this.
Bruins lose 5-1.
Game Notes
- Your TOI Leader last night was Charlie McAvoy, who played 23:07
- Last game, the Bruins got beat by a mix of incredible goaltending and hideous turnovers. That’s bad. This time…I genuinely think the Bruins just got goalie’d again, only this time Seattle relied more on a relentless forecheck to break down the B’s in a much more boring, less catastrophic way when they scored. Granted, going down 2-0 early is never good, but Philipp Grubauer is generally not good enough, at least not recently, to suddenly put up a .971 SV%, and the only goal he let up be a penalty shot. This was yet another night where the offense somehow could not summon the finish necessary to keep up with their opponent, and it again cost them.
- That said, it’d be nice if the Bruins could use these games where they largely control play and the shot attempt share to have someone other than David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand score; especially recently. Hell, I’d like it if a number of forwards tried outshooting Mark Kastelic, but as of right now, only Pasta and Brad are getting close, and far more worryingly, the only ones who’ve scored. Whatever it is Joe Sacco did other than play the dregs of the Eastern Conference to get the rest of these guys going, he’s gotta reach into whatever bag of tricks he has to snap them out of whatever these last couple of efforts have been.
- The Joonas Korpisalo hype train hit a rock on the tracks last night as he coughed up an .800 SV%, but at this rate it’s becoming incredibly difficult to attribute any negative performance purely to the goaltenders at this rate; the defense in front of him either isn’t set properly to play this kind of team, or they just don’t have the chemistry necessary to put together a winning effort.
- Every so often I catch myself thinking about when Jim Montgomery said you can’t plan for a lack of juice…and I’m really afraid that quote is going to haunt this team like Willem Dafoe’s speech in The Lighthouse. It really does feel like this team can have all the advantages in the world and still can’t make it work for them sometimes.
- We’re barrelling towards the 2nd half of the schedule and it really does feel like this team is just lurching forward in their 3rd spot in the Atlantic. It’s a good thing the rest of the division is a level of bad only sung of in horrid wails, otherwise they might be in a lot of trouble. Namely, I think they need to start winning some of these games against opponents that actually have a fairly decent shot of getting into the playoffs.
- As if things couldn’t get worse, Elias Lindholm and Pavel Zacha got hurt in this game. While both have had their struggles, losing any forward talent right now feels like a major kick in the ‘nads for a team already struggling to get offense going. Let’s just hope that both of them recover quickly and that their injuries aren’t that serious. This team can’t afford any more bodies in hospital beds.
The Bruins get back on the road and play the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night. That game is on at 7pm EST.
We’ll see you there, and hopefully Boston gets it’s act together, or this is gonna be one long road trip.