Despite having their four-game winning streak snapped in Thursday's 6-5 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, there were some things the Boston Bruins liked about their game.
Specifically, their resiliency. The Bruins trailed 5-2 midway through the second period, but came back to tie the game early in the third. They kept pushing after Sidney Crosby put the Penguins back in front with 8:41 to go, but couldn't pull even again.
"As a coach, you love the way your team never stops fighting, and we never stopped fighting," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. "We believed the whole entire game, even when it was 5-2, we're gonna come back and win. We did come back and tie it 5-5. You want to have that kind of spirit in your team."
Of course, the problem is the fact that the Bruins fell behind 5-2 in the first place. After giving up seven goals total during their recent four-game win streak, the Bruins surrendered four in the first period alone Thursday, and another 6:38 into the second.
"We always know we're gonna fight back, but it shouldn't really get to that point," Charlie Coyle said.
It got to that point because of the kind of porous defense that had reared its ugly head at times during their four-game losing streak right before Christmas, particularly during a 5-1 loss in Winnipeg. Drew O'Connor beat Matt Grzelcyk to the net-front on the Penguins' first goal and buried a rebound. Hampus Lindholm got caught up ice on a long stretch pass on the third, leaving Crosby and Jake Guentzel on a 2-on-1.
Mason Lohrei turned the puck over in the build-up to the fourth, and the three Bruins forwards on the ice all got caught high in the zone, leaving the Penguins with a 3-on-2 down low. Jeff Carter found a soft spot between Lohrei and Grzelcyk just as a Pittsburgh power play expired on the fifth, allowing him to bury a rebound unchallenged. A Danton Heinen turnover in the neutral zone led to the 2-on-1 that ended with the Charlie McAvoy hooking penalty that set up Crosby's power-play winner.
There was some bad luck involved, too. One Penguins goal deflected in off Coyle, and Crosby's winner deflected in off Lindholm. The crosschecking call against Brandon Carlo leading up to Pittsburgh's fifth goal was a soft one.
But more of the damage was the Bruins' own doing. There were too many odd-man rushes and too many lost battles at the net-front. The Penguins got 21 high-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick. That's the second-most the Bruins have allowed this season, behind only a disastrous 7-4 loss to the New York Rangers on Nov. 25.
"We didn't end plays in the D-zone when they went behind the net. That's where it starts," Montgomery said. "And then our defensemen didn't get back to our net quick enough on our handoffs in our D-zone coverage. That's why they scored two goals in the first period, were rebound goals, and it's because we're 2-on-1 at the net."
At least for the first half of the game, the Bruins looked like a team that couldn't match the intensity and desperation of the Penguins, who are fighting for their playoff lives. The Bruins are going to have to learn how to match desperate opponents like this. Right now, teams 4-12 in the Eastern Conference, including the Penguins, are separated by just six points. That's a lot of teams that have very little wiggle room. The Bruins will face another one of those teams Saturday when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"I think teams will force you to increase your pace," Montgomery said. "I think we're gonna see it here. Saturday night, we've got a great team in Tampa coming in. Then we've got four games on the road, tough, tough environments, teams that are playing well, Colorado and Vegas in particular. Then after the All-Star break, everyone takes a breath and then they really start to look at, do we have a shot? And then the intensity goes up another five-fold, and we need more players to rise to the occasion."
It's not entirely clear if Montgomery's comment about needing "more players to rise to the occasion" was sparked by Thursday night in particular, or if he was speaking more generally about the next couple months. There were certainly some players who could have brought more to the table Thursday.
Captain Brad Marchand doesn't see Thursday night as an effort issue, though, but rather a mental one that the team can learn from.
"I don't think that we had a bad effort," he said. "I think it's just we had a few mental mistakes. I thought our effort was there. … It just shows that you have to be mentally prepared every night. It's something that, we still have a young group and we still need to learn and kind of get through together."
Looking for those opportunities to learn has been a common refrain whenever the Bruins have slipped up this season. They believe any adversity they face will make them better in the long run, especially after dealing with so little of it last year during the regular season.
"You get further along in the year and games continue to get harder, guys start to mesh even more, teams start to mesh even more," Carlo said. "So, that's a good thing. We're excited to face adversity this year. It's going to help us grow to become the playoff team that we want to be."
