After a disheartening loss to a struggling Flyers team on Tuesday, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery blew up all his forward lines in an effort to jump-start his sinking team.
The result? A thoroughly embarrassing loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, 8-2, at Lenovo Center on Thursday.
The B’s, outshot 37-16 on Thursday, are as fragile as they’ve been since management broomed long-time coach Claude Julien in favor of Bruce Cassidy in the winter of 2017. Now, before we have even turned back the clocks for the long New England winter, the B’s season appears to be already hanging in the balance. Nothing Montgomery has tried with his increasingly fragile team has worked. It has seemingly never fully recovered from getting walloped by the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on opening night.
How bad was it on Thursday? The B’s managed just four even-strength shots on net in the first two periods, when they were outshot 28-10. They allowed the Canes all sorts of space in the neutral zone, letting them gain the zone with speed. For the third time this season, they allowed three power-play goals as they continued to take too many infractions. The big money veterans are not executing the simplest of plays and the promising youngsters have been sucked into the morass.
In other words, the Bruins are a mess, and there’s no telling when, how or if they can pull out of it.
Disaster struck in the first period when they fell down 4-1, lowlighted by three Carolina goals in 52 seconds late in the period.
The new lines did nothing to create opportunities in the offensive zone and the Canes were able to come at them with speed over the blue line.
Carolina got on the board at 6:28 on a delayed penalty call against Johnny Beecher, who clipped the goalie Pyotr Kochetkov on a fly-by. The Canes quickly got the extra man onto the ice and Sebastien Aho found a wide open Jack Roslovic, who beat Jeremy Swayman with a wrist shot from the slot.
While the roof over the B’s heads was creaking, the Canes threw them a life line. Jesper Kotkaniemi took a high-sticking double minor and then Jalen Chatfield drilled Brad Marchand from behind to give them a 5-on-3. Marchand tied the game at 13:11.
The Canes stayed in the gift-giving mood. Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour, as he is wont to do, kept barking at the refs and, 13 seconds after the Marchand goal (which was his 403rd career tally, putting him in sole possession of fourth place on the B’s list), he was tagged with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
The B’s had a great chance to take the lead when Marchand sent a beautiful pass down to Elias Lindholm for a redirect but he heeled it wide. The B’s could do no more damage on the second 5-on-3.
When the teams got back to full strength, Brind’Amour got the call he was looking for when Cole Koepke was called for interference off a face-off On the advantage, Andrei Svechnikov tipped a Shayne Gostisbehere shot/pass to retake the lead at 17:14.
The Canes made it a two-goal lead just 38 seconds later. Nikita Zadorov could not control a bouncing puck at the Boston blue line and he fell down, giving the Canes numbers going to the net. Eventually Dmitry Orlov followed up a rebound and beat Swayman to make it 3-1.
Mark Kastelic was then quickly called for a high-sticking penalty and Carolina converted when Martin Necas’ pass went off Brandon Carlo and in.
In the second, the B’s made the deficit manageable briefly when Hampus Lindholm score a rarity for the B’s – a 5-on-5 goal – when he carried the puck deep into the slot and roofed a shot at 3:38.
But the Canes put the B’s away with another blitz, scoring two goals in 41 seconds.
First, with Beecher in the box for a high-stick, Swayman made a great backdoor save on Svechnikov only to have Svechnikov jam home the rebound.
On the next shift, Jordan Martinook stripped Mason Lohrei of the puck and fed Roslovic in front for his second of the game. Coach Jim Montgomery took mercy on Swayman and pulled him at the point for Joonas Korpisalo. Game over.
Carolina added a couple of third period goals to make the score appropriately lopsided.