The Bruins have the third-ranked power play in the entire National Hockey League. There’s very little to complain about whenever a team finds the back of the net on the man advantage, as the Bruins have done on 41 of their 147 attempts.
But there’s a concerning side to this as well, and it’s not about scoring twice in their last 10 attempts. There’s something more glaring: the plethora of shorthanded goals allowed.
Paul Byron’s beautiful tally at 17:09 of the second period marked the Bruins’ league-leading 10th shorthanded goal against in their 46th game of the season. The Bruins allowed the same number of shorties last season, good for eighth most in the league.
So what’s been the issue? They’ve struggled to get into their setup to allow themselves an aggressive attack from the get-go. That’s the first step.
Then there’s the issue of going down the ice and chasing the puck, thus sucking up time and energy while providing fresh faces and quick changes for the opposing penalty kill. This provides a sense of urgency to force plays and be suspect in the turnover department.
All of this factored into Byron’s shorthanded tally to give the Canadiens a 2-1 lead late in the second period.
“We’re just kind of roaming a little bit right now on the power play, we got to be a little bit more structured. If we do that then we’ll get more pucks back and we’ll be in a little better position defensively,” Brad Marchand said. “Definitely comes down to respect and we got to play both ends of the rink so. When we don’t have it on the power play we got to make sure we’re working position to get it back and make sure we don’t give opportunities up.”
But there’s a flip side to this. After all, they wouldn’t be ranked third on the PP without some timely goals. And they got that on David Krejci’s blast during a de facto 6-on-4 attempt at 19:22 to even things up.
The Bruins finished the night with 43 shots on net against a stellar Carey Price, including five on their three power play attempts.
The man advantage swung the momentum in Boston’s favor heading into the extra session. That momentum swing evaporated quickly when Jeff Petry batted home a Tuukka Rask rebound just 15 seconds into overtime to give Montreal the 3-2 win in the final Bruins-Canadiens regular season matchup of 2018-19.
Bryon’s shorty surely provided a turning point, though. The Bruins got aggressive searching for the equalizer. Now they need to find that attacking rhythm consistently on the power play and avoid allowing quality shorthanded attempts.
“I think lately they’re just fighting it a little bit. Some of that is they force some plays, gotten away from making the play that’s available, recovering the puck and then breaking the kill down when they’re fatigued or not in position. They’re trying to do the opposite – break them down early when they’re in position and they’re fresh. I think it’s caught up to us a little bit,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said.
“Teams are more aggressive against us. I think they’re seeing – they pre-scout. They see a team do it and are like okay, they’re not handling it well enough. So, we’re going to get that until we do. That’s just the way I see it. Maybe not. We’ll see when we go to Philly, but we’ve got to be better prepared for it. And part of that is on me to make sure in practice that we’re duplicating that. We try to do that. It’s not the same as the game, but we’ve got to keep harping on it.”
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