A fast have a look at the standings suggests Wednesday’s showdown between the Bruins and Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena is much more vital to the Leafs than it’s to the B’s. Eleven factors again of the B’s, the Leafs might very effectively be making their last-ditch effort to create a race out of the Atlantic Division.
The B’s, nevertheless, are smarting. They’ve misplaced three straight, with their 4-1 loss in Carolina on Sunday being one among their worst showings of the season.
But Brad Marchand was giving off distinct no-panic vibes when he met with reporters after the B’s observe at Warrior Ice Arena on Tuesday. The B’s knew this bump would finally arrive. Now they simply must work their method out of it. And the three losses, he argued, weren’t all unhealthy.
“Listen, we easily could have won that game in Florida. The game we lost to Tampa, a lucky goal. Yeah, we didn’t have a good game in Carolina. But if you break it down, we’re not concerned,” stated Marchand. “No one’s too concerned about losing three in a row. Yeah, it’s not ideal. But if you look at the way we lost, yeah, we gave up a bad one there in Florida (the tying goal with 1.4 seconds remaining in regulation), they got a lucky one in Tampa. It’s going to happen. We’re playing really good teams. We’re getting the best from every team that we play. And we know that. So we just have to dial it back a little bit. We’ll be all right.”
The torrid first few months might have arrange unreasonable expectations for what this crew might accomplish.
“You’re not going to coast through this league, regardless. We’re not that good of a team. Yeah, we’re good, but we’re not going to run through this league and we never thought that for a second,” stated Marchand. “Even if you look at the games we won early on, it was because we play the right way, we play hard and we just find a way to win. It’s not like we’re dominating every game. There’s too much parity in the league. Even teams that are out of the playoffs right now, they could easily put up six, seven goals a night. It’s a very, very competitive league and the teams that come out on top at the end of the day are teams that find ways to win, find ways to stick with it and that’s where we’ve been really good and it’s allowed us to succeed. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter what you do in the regular season anyway. We could win every game and if we don’t win in the playoffs, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Starting with the third interval in Tampa, it appeared that some fatigue was setting in with the B’s, who now sit at a nonetheless lofty 38-7-5.That fatigue might very effectively be psychological, stemming from the truth that they’ve been the league’s measuring stick for a few months now.
“It makes the games harder, for sure. You’re competing at the highest levels every night,” stated Marchand. “But we have our own measuring sticks. Teams look at us, but we look at other teams, too. There are easily seven or eight teams that are legit contenders. And really any team could come out of the woodwork at this point. You look at what St. Louis did in ’19. It really doesn’t matter how teams view us. We take care of our game and how we view ourselves and how we want to build for the playoffs. It does make every game harder because they know they need to be prepared when they play us. But that’s only going to make s better down the road, too.”
Power outage
One approach to snap out of this mini-slump can be to get the facility play going once more. Their 0-for-12 displaying within the three losses dropped them right down to sixth within the league (25.8%), and the goose egg was not as regarding as how disjointed the method regarded. On many events, the B’s might by no means even achieve the zone to arrange.
What’s the foundation of that drawback?
“I think attacking the blue line with speed and guys coming together. The timing of it,” stated coach Jim Montgomery. “We had guys ahead of one another, we weren’t attacking the F1 of the penalty kill well enough, which is making it easier for them to stand at the blue line. Then there has to be a willingness to not always carry it across but go and get your own chip-ins.”
There has additionally been some altering personnel. Taylor Hall took the injured Jake DeBrusk’s spot because the net-front participant and at first they continued to click on at a great charge. But with the highest unit flagging, Hall was changed by David Krejci in Carolina, with Marchand taking the net-front. That was the set-up in Tuesday’s observe
“Once you mix up the units and there are different guys on it, there’s different chemistry. That’s part of it a little bit, just finding out where certain guys fit best and you just have to work on it,” stated Marchand. “We didn’t have really have any reps together before we jumped on the line together, so it was just about getting some reps.”
Lettieri injured
Tough break for Vinni Lettieri. Providence’s main scorer was known as as much as the B’s for the primary time this yr however suffered a decrease physique damage in observe and was on crutches afterward. The severity of the damage was not recognized, however he couldn’t journey with the crew to Toronto.
Jakub Lauko, additionally introduced up from Providence, will probably be fourth line proper wing with middle Trent Frederic and left wing A.J. Greer. David Pastrnak was reunited with Marchand and Patrice Bergeron, left wing Hall was on the second line with Krejci and Pavel Zacha whereas Charlie Coyle middle Nick Foligno and Craig Smith.
DeBrusk progressing
DeBrusk, out since breaking his fibula within the Winter Classic, skated earlier than and through B’s observe in a non-contact jersey. Montgomery stated that he’d be “shocked” if the winger wasn’t able to play of their first recreation again after the break towards Washington on Feb. 11. …
The Leafs will probably be with out star Auston Matthews, however they’ve fared fairly effectively with out Matthews within the lineup over time, going 32-17-2 in his absence.
Source: www.bostonherald.com