When Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy began to answer questions in his postgame press conference after Boston dropped a 4-2 game to the St. Louis Blues, there was a palpable level of frustration in his tone. He voiced his irritation with several components of the Bruins’ game and his disappointment with a few players in particular.
“It's just really not very intelligent hockey, and you don't win against good teams when you don't play intelligent hockey,” Cassidy said. “I think our effort, we’re trying, guys are working hard, it’s just we’ve got to be smarter, plain and simple.”
Cassidy said what he saw from the team against the Blues was more like what he saw from them back in November, when they were unable to put together 60-minute efforts and lost all four games they played against playoff teams.
“Our habits were good for half of the game, so we’re back to November where we played half a hockey game and then shot ourselves in the foot and couldn't do enough to recover against good hockey clubs,” Cassidy said. “I've seen this before, I just haven't seen it in a while.”
Cassidy went on to describe some trends with the team that he’s not happy with.
“All of those [goals against], a few of them we had the puck on our stick, very similar to Washington the other night. There's a trend here,” he said.
“We take a bad penalty, two of them really. We shot a puck into the crowd when we talked about moving our feet and getting on our forehand so that you can make a strong play. But that's not on purpose, that’s just something we have to keep drilling down. Faceoffs we talk about moving our feet to get to better ice and force a play into the wall and then we don't manage it well, so those things are a trend. We have to correct them.”
Cassidy also called out individual players for mistakes that led to goals for the Blues.
One decision he criticized was Trent Frederic’s lack of discipline in the second period when he was assessed a roughing penalty for ripping off Vladimir Tarasenko’s helmet after the whistle. Just over a minute later, Torey Krug scored a power-play goal against his former team.
When asked what his level of disappointment was in Frederic for that penalty, Cassidy responded, “Very high.”
Frederic played just two more shifts after that, with Cassidy benching him for the end of the second period and a good chunk of the third. Frederic ended up playing just 8:31 for the game, the lowest of any Bruin besides Brandon Carlo, who left the game with an injury in the first period and did not return.
Later, Cassidy made a point to highlight a mistake by Charlie Coyle that resulted in the Blues’ fourth goal, which sealed the Bruins’ fate.
“We made a lot of mistakes,” Cassidy said. “First goal we don't cover for the D’s in between. The third one was a faceoff win, we don't get to the middle as a D, we lose a battle, we don't reload to the right position, so that led to one. The last one, Charlie Coyle refuses to shoot the puck towards the net. We had people going there and he loses a battle and they're gone.”
On top of those individual mistakes, Cassidy was displeased with what he saw on the Bruins’ two power-play opportunities. The power play is now 0-for-18 over the last five games.
“Lack of execution. I think we’re selfish,” he said of the power play. “Guys are holding the puck too long wanting to make the play instead of letting the puck do the work. I think those two things are fairly evident.”
When asked about Jeremy Swayman’s performance in the loss, Cassidy indicated that the blame was not on the performance of his goaltender.
“I thought Swayman was fine,” Cassidy said. “Again, the Krug goal kind of squeaks through him, but it's a slot shot, it's a good shot. We’ve seen Torey score from there before. Other than that I don’t think he had much of a chance on any of the other ones.”
The Bruins will have a chance to right the ship Thursday night in their home game against the Ottawa Senators, whom they have beaten in all three of their previous meetings this season.
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