The Bruins’ top line won its head-to-head matchups against Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Charlie McAvoy and Derek Forbort saw even more of those two stars and played them to a draw. Boston kept Edmonton’s league-best power play off the board. And the Bruins still lost to the Oilers, 5-3, at TD Garden on Thursday night.
It was a depressing indictment of what these Bruins are right now: a team that simply isn’t deep enough to beat the NHL’s best teams, even when their top players do what they’re supposed to do. It’s a reality that’s even more depressing when you consider that depth was supposed to be the part of the roster that general manager Don Sweeney had improved this offseason.
You could nitpick the performance of the Bruins’ stars if you want. There were a couple instances of over-passing from them. David Pastrnak somehow didn’t score on a seemingly wide-open net with eight minutes left in the third. And Brad Marchand went for an ill-timed change on the Oilers’ first goal.
But they also provided the Bruins’ only offense despite spending all but a couple shifts matched up against McDavid or Draisaitl or both. Pastrnak scored Boston’s first goal after Bergeron collected a turnover in the neutral zone and made a nice pass to spring him on a 2-on-1.
Marchand scored the second when he buried a loose puck in front after some good work from Pastrnak to set up an offensive-zone possession. And it was Bergeron and Marchand’s work on an offensive-zone faceoff that set up Brandon Carlo’s goal on a shot from the point, with Marchand and Pastrnak both creating traffic in front.
In the top line’s 11:07 of 5-on-5 ice time, the Bruins had advantages of 15-4 in shot attempts, 11-3 in shots on goal and 3-1 in goals. They outshot Draisaitl 5-2 in nearly eight minutes against him and outshot McDavid 4-0 in nearly four minutes against him. The one goal against that all three were on the ice for was Carlo’s horrendous turnover to Draisaitl right in front of the Bruins net, which none of them could’ve done anything about.
It wasn’t quite perfection, but in as tough an assignment as you can get, it was about as close as could be reasonably expected. They did their job. So did the Forbort-McAvoy pairing for the most part (although they did give up one McDavid breakaway that fortunately ended with him hitting the post). And so did the Bruins’ fourth line of Anton Blidh, Tomas Nosek and Curtis Lazar, which also saw a lot of McDavid and Draisaitl and more than held their own, limiting chances and keeping them off the board.
The middle of the Bruins’ roster did not get the job done, though. Goal aside, Carlo had an especially tough night. There was the turnover to Draisaitl in his own zone on Edmonton’s third goal. Then he got completely out-muscled by Draisaitl in front of the net on the fourth. Carlo also saw McDavid blow by him twice to create a pair of scoring chances.
On the Oilers’ fifth goal, which ended any chance of a comeback, it was Connor Clifton committing the d-zone turnover by throwing the puck carelessly off a forechecker’s skate, sending it careening to the slot, where it was eventually put home by Cody Ceci.
Earlier in the game, third-line center Erik Haula committed his own turnover on the breakout, which led to Zach Hyman cutting to the net between him and winger Jake DeBrusk and flipping a backhand past Linus Ullmark for the Oilers’ second goal. That came just 24 seconds after the Bruins took a 2-1 lead and immediately sucked the energy out of the building. DeBrusk’s poor defending against Ceci also played a key role in setting up Draisaitl’s second goal.
The Bruins’ second line deserves criticism as well. While Charlie Coyle made a couple good defensive plays and Nick Foligno brought some welcome physicality in his return from injury, the two of them and Taylor Hall didn’t create enough offense despite seeing more of the Oilers’ bottom six than their top six. This game was desperately calling out for a second line that could take advantage of those matchups and pot a goal or two, but Hall, Coyle and Foligno could not.
Yes, it is a long season and there is time for the Bruins’ depth to improve. Yes, the advanced metrics still tell a fairly encouraging story (the Bruins are second in expected goals-for percentage). But through 11 games, here are some undeniable truths:
-Among Bruins who have played more than one game, Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak are the only three with a positive goal differential at 5-on-5.
-Those three have combined for seven 5-on-5 goals in 11 games. The entire rest of the Bruins’ forward group has also combined for seven.
-The Bruins rank 26th in 5-on-5 goals scored, 25th in 5-on-5 goals allowed and 26th in 5-on-5 goal differential.
-They are now 6-5-0 and sit in 11th place in the Eastern Conference on points percentage.
-They are 4-0-0 against teams with losing records, but just 2-5-0 against teams with winning records.
Simply put, the Bruins need a lot more from players other than their stars -- and sooner rather than later -- if they’re even going to be a playoff team, never mind a Stanley Cup contender.
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