By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com
The Boston Bruins didn’t do much of anything right in Saturday night’s 3-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens.
But the game’s first scoring play, which saw Brendan Gallagher spin around Noel Acciari and fire a bad angle goal through Matt Grzelcyk and Tuukka Rask, was downright inexcusable. It’s a chance that the 31-year-old Rask, who has been beyond inconsistent out of the gate this season, has to keep out of Boston’s net.
“I picked the wrong seal there and this day and age if you’re not sealing completely it’s going to go through,” Rask said of the goal. “Unfortunately it went through, it’s my bad. It took us a few minutes after that to get going and I got to make that save, but whatever. Next time I’ll do a better seal.”
The bad goal had an undeniable ripple effect on the B’s, too, as a chaotic breakdown in front of the Boston net less than a minute and half later gave the Canadiens a 2-0 edge by way of Max Domi’s fifth goal of the year.
While the two-goal edge should not be insurmountable — especially on home ice — the goals were downright deflating to a Boston offensive attack that failed to truly get Carey Price moving at the other end of the rink.
“Well, you can’t chase the game all the time,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy admitted after the loss. “It’s okay to be down one but you get down two and it gives the other team a lot of juice. [Montreal’s first goal] was a soft goal, as a team and the goaltender has to be able to get out of the first period without being too far behind.”
And while Rask failed to look great on Domi’s goal, Cassidy did not the team-wide breakdown that came on that tally, which saw Zdeno Chara and Brandon Carlo looking oddly standstill and out of danger.
“The second one I put that a little more on we didn’t return to the proper spots in d-zone,” Cassidy offered. “We swung away because the original rush — I think [Zdeno Chara] was maybe getting a penalty; I’m not sure, but they didn’t get the shot on the breakaway. So, by then you should be able to recover. You should be able to beat their guys to your slot. I think we had time to do that. We kind of turned away thinking the play was dead and was going in a different direction, so we’ll put that on the whole group.
“Yeah, it’s a savable puck [on the second goal], but that’s an area we need to protect better. And I don’t think we did a great job of that in the first period, something we’ve done really well since after Game 1.”
With the loss, Rask’s record dropped to 3-3-0 with a .902 save percentage on the year.
Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. He has also been a voting member of the Boston Chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association since 2013. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Have a news tip, question, or comment for Ty? Follow him on Twitter @_TyAnderson.